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Have you ever wanted to read through some of your actions? Now, as I mentioned t married couple, even if you didn't itemize. But that was a temporary deduction that's gone away. It doesn't apply for 2022. Now, to get a deduction for giving, you do have to itemize your deductions.

But here's an interesting fact. With the standard deduction being much higher than it used to be, relatively few taxpayers still itemize. Only about 12%. That means that for most folks, a tax deduction doesn't come into play when making giving decisions.

And frankly, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with taking a charitable giving deduction if you meet the requirements. But whether or not you get a tax break should not be the deciding factor in whether to give. That's because for the Christian, giving is a matter of the heart. It's a sign or a demonstration of our love for the Lord. Much in the same way you probably just gave Christmas gifts to your dearest loved ones. Giving a gift to a friend or family member is a way of saying, I love you and I'm so glad you're in my life. Money has value to us. We work hard for it. So when we use it to buy a gift for someone, we're saying I treasure you more than money. The same is true of giving to God's work. Whether through giving to a local church or a specialized ministry, we're saying, Lord, I treasure you more than money. You know, it certainly seems providential that here in the U.S. our coins and currency have on them the phrase, In God We Trust.

Every time we see that, it would be appropriate to say, Amen. Our attitude as believers is that our trust is in God and not in the money we have. When we give, we offer testimony that we really do trust Him.

We trust Him to meet our needs and we trust that His grace is sufficient for us in every situation. Let me tell you a true story. In 1859, French tightrope walker Charles Blondin walked above Niagara Falls on a tightrope, 1100 feet from end to end. He then did it again, blindfolded. After that, he asked the crowd, Do you believe I can do it again? They had already seen him do it more than once, so they called out approvingly, Yes, we believe you can do it again. At that point, Blondin asked for a volunteer to climb on his back and go across the falls with him, as you can probably guess, no one in the crowd volunteered.

No one believed in him that much. Well, when we give generously from the heart and with the right motives, it's like saying, Lord, I do trust you that much. I believe that although I'm giving this money away, you'll take care of me and meet all my needs. So as you do your year-end giving, remember these two things. First, giving is an affair of the heart. It's about what we truly treasure. And second, it's a sign of our trust in the Lord.

And here's one more thing to keep in mind. As we give, we reflect the heart of God who gave us his only son, the one whose birth we just celebrated. It's an opportunity to demonstrate our love for him and to be connected to where he is at work through our generosity.

You see, folks, we actually get to participate with the King of Kings. 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.

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. Just before the break, we were talking to Amy in Texas about a biblical view of retirement or perhaps the lack thereof that we should recognize that we were created to be workers before the fall, that this modern concept of an assumed retirement to cease all productive activity at age 65 really isn't a biblical concept. It's a modern concept, and we need to accept that our calling is throughout the whole of our life.

But Amy, you do have to ask the question, well, why then do we talk so much about it? And one of the reasons is that people are living longer these days than in previous generations, and you may reach a point where you're physically unable to work, and that's why we save diligently for that season where we may be redirected away from paid work, and we want to spend more time with family, perhaps we want to invest in God's kingdom in a different way with our time and our resources. So all of that has to be factored in. As it relates to your situation, I'd love your thoughts on that, but also financially speaking, I think we have to go back to the budget and say, what are the income sources I'll have, and do I have enough to continue to meet my obligations throughout the rest of my life? And one part of that is recognizing that every year you start to take Social Security prior to full retirement age, you're going to permanently reduce that benefit by about 8% per year prior to the full retirement age, so you've got to factor that in as well.

But give me your thoughts. Well, I know that that would be less. I have fibromyalgia, and it affects your joints, and your pain is way off the roof. I have dry eye disease, and I'm here at my eye appointment fixing to go in, and I just feel like with those, I just feel like I've got 401K, and I don't have a house payment, and I thought that it would give me more time or free me up where I can do more volunteer and evangelism with my church.

I love that. Well, I think the key is I think you're right on track in terms of how you're thinking about it. Those health issues are real, so I think you've got to go back to that budget. The great news is you're living modestly. As you said, you're living with your brother. Your expenses are low.

You don't have a house payment. You've got the 401K. You'll have the Social Security. So I think the next step, if you haven't done it already, is just to crunch the numbers, determine what your retirement budget will look like. Often it's 70% or 80% of your pre-retirement expenses just because you're not traveling as much to work, work clothes.

You're not eating out as much during lunch. You're not saving for retirement. I mean, all these things can further reduce what your monthly expenses are, but put that budget together, and then compare that to perhaps a 4% withdrawal rate annually from your 401K. That would be a target, plus Social Security, and see if you can make that budget balance if you can. I love the idea of where you're headed.

I think you're perfectly in line with what Scripture would teach, that you're just looking for the Lord to tell you what he has next for you in this season of life, and that doesn't have to include paid work, especially since you've been a saver and you're living modestly. So I would say, Amy, just continue on this track. Would you mind if I pray for you before you walk into that appointment?

I would love that. All right. Father, we just lift Amy up to you. Your creation, Lord. She's named off some health issues she's having.

These aren't catching you by surprise, Lord. We just ask that you, as the great physician, would touch and bring healing to her body. I pray that you give her a vision for what you have for her in this next season of life. You would anoint her work as unto you, and do a new work in her life that she would be able to take and redirect her time and her energy and her wisdom and her service to you.

For even greater kingdom work in the days ahead. We love you, and we're thankful in advance for what you're going to do in her life. In Jesus' name, amen. Amy, thank you for your call today. Thank you so much. All right, God bless you. To Montana we go. Hey, Ross, thanks for your patience. Go ahead, sir.

Question for you. Due to a change in employer, we need to do a 401k rollover to a traditional IRA. What should I expect to pay an advisor to do that? And then, year after year, what does it cost to have, on average, an IRA from an advisor standpoint?

Yeah, great question. Do you mind if I ask roughly what you have in investable assets in that account? Yeah, that account will be about $250,000.

Okay, great. Yeah, so that would be a typical size account that an advisor would have, you know, usually somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000 up. And you would expect to pay nothing for that rollover. What you would typically have with an investment advisor would be an ongoing management fee if you're going to give them discretion over the portfolio where essentially you would meet, you'd talk about your goals and objectives, you'd get together periodically, you know, to review that and talk about any changes or transitions going on in your life. But the advisor and his or her team would take responsibility for constructing the portfolio and managing the investments inside of it according to your goals and objectives. And with a quarter of a million dollar portfolio, you should expect to pay somewhere between one and one and a half percent a year. And that would be an annual fee that would be debited from the portfolio, probably quarterly, and, you know, that would cover all of the management.

So that, on that portfolio, could be as much as $3,750, you know, all the way down to maybe $2,500 a year. And then there may be some transaction costs for the custodian on top of that, but that will be minimal. The only other cost you would have is if there's any management fees baked into the investments they choose. So if they're not buying individual stocks, but rather they're using, let's say, mutual funds, they may have an expense ratio built into them.

So those would be basically the fees that you would have. And then, obviously, what you would be looking at at the end of the day, moving forward, is what is my overall return? So, you know, what has the portfolio grown to? You've got to recognize anything you're pulling out if you're, you know, withdrawing from it periodically, either monthly or annually, but then looking at the real return net of fees just to see how am I doing? Am I keeping up with the investment strategy we selected? Am I outperforming the market? Am I underperforming it?

And, you know, how am I doing overall? So does that make sense, though, in terms of the fee structure? It does, and you say you pay it quarterly.

Generally, yeah, it's an annual fee, but usually they debit it one-third of it, or, excuse me, one-fourth of it each quarter, based on the value of the portfolio at the end of the quarter. We appreciate your call, Russ. God bless you, my friend. Thanks for checking in with us. We're going to take a quick break and back with much more right after this. 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. Hey, if you're looking for an advisor who shares your values and priorities as a believer, who's been trained to offer biblical financial advice, has met high standards in character and competence, pastor and client references, well, that's a certified kingdom advisor. You can find a CKA in your area. There's more than 1,300 of them around the country. When you head to MoneyWise.org and just click Find a CKA. All right, back to the phones. We go to Houston, Texas. Hey, Carol, thanks for calling.

How can I help? I had just heard about donor-advised funds. I really don't know much about them, and is there a minimum you'd have to put in it? I mean, I don't feel like we have enough money for it.

It seems like it would be people who have millions or billions, but anyway, you enlighten me. Yeah, I'd be happy to, and there really is no minimum, so it's not only for the ultra affluent. You might want to think of it, Carol, as a charitable checking account. Essentially, you make a gift to the donor-advised fund. At that point, the gift is recognized for tax purposes, which is one of the benefits, because if you put in a lump sum and then you determine when you want to give that away and to what ministries or charities or your church, you're no longer going to get contribution receipts from all of those different ministries or your church. You're just going to get one contribution receipt for the gift that you make to your donor-advised fund, and then you would typically go in like an online checking account and grant it out to the various ministries and charities at your discretion and in the timing that you choose.

So where a lot of folks will use them is what they call bunching. So for instance, if they had a lump sum available that they wanted to use for giving, let's say over the next 24 months, and they had the ability to put it all in their donor-advised fund now, they could recognize that entire charitable contribution in one tax year, which perhaps could get them from the standard deduction up to an itemized deduction because they now have given enough that it pushes them beyond the standard deduction. But then they could grant it out, so to speak, with a couple of clicks of a button at whatever intervals they want.

They could take a year to do it. They could take two years to do it or more, again, using this charitable checking account called the donor-advised fund. The other tool or area where it becomes very helpful is with non-cash assets. And so this is where it does only apply to a select number of people. But for instance, you can make a gift of appreciated stock.

We have less and less of that these days. But if you had appreciated stock, you could give it to your donor-advised fund and not pay the capital gains on it and then give it out. You can actually give a business interest or a piece of a real estate or a piece of appreciated art. All of that could go into the donor-advised fund and then be sold inside the donor-advised fund, missing the taxes, but then creating the funding in the donor-advised fund for you then to give it away at your leisure. So again, think of it as a charitable checking account, no minimums, and a way for you strategically to do your giving. Now, if you're someone who's just given a monthly amount on a recurring basis to your church and maybe at the end of the year, you give some gifts to ministries you love and care about and you don't really see any value in running it through the donor-advised fund for the reasons that I mentioned, then it may not be a tool that's going to benefit you tremendously.

But if one of those sounds appealing, either the bunching strategy or non-cash gifts or you'd like to go and make a gift now and then spread it out and give it over a longer period of time, that's where a donor-advised fund can be really helpful. Does that all make sense? Well, it does.

It does. Thank you very much. Is there any length of time you have? You do not have any length of time.

It can stay there as long as you want. So you put it in and then you decide when you want to grant it out. The place that I would go to set it up, there's any number of them out there at the brokerage firms and there's some kind of new fintech-type smartphone app platforms that have donor-advised funds. But we recommend what's called a giving fund, which is a donor-advised fund.

It's just what they call it at the National Christian Foundation, ncfgiving.com. It's quick and easy to set up a donor-advised fund or in their case a giving fund right there on their website. You can make all the gifts electronically or you can mail in a check. It gets deposited into your giving fund and then they have a wonderful, simple, and easy-to-use web interface for you to go in, pick the ministries or your church or the charities you want to grant to. And with a couple of clicks of a button, you can make a gift out of your donor-advised fund either anonymously or in your name.

And you could do it either way. So again, the website is ncfgiving.com and it's really quick and easy to set it up. Okay, very good. Thank you so much for your help. You've helped me a lot.

Absolutely. Thank you, Carol. We appreciate your call today.

To, let's see, Alabama. Hey, Keith, how can I help you? So I just retired from the military after serving 25 years as of last month. And so I'm retired, so receiving retirement pay, receiving VA pay, and actually have a job as well.

So I'm making pretty good money right now. And with my wife's pay, we're making about $300,000 a year. And so we have two houses that we own. One is being rented, the other we're living in. We're also getting prepared in the next two years to build our dream house in another location.

And so we're about to sell one of the homes, the one we're not living in. And so I know this is our first time actually getting a home built from the ground, so I know the loans are different. There's a construction loan, and then once that expires, once the house is built, then there's a mortgage that you have to get. So I'm just trying to make sure that our plan is not to sell the house that we're living in until a year after the house is being built, meaning we'll have the construction loan but not the mortgage loan. And just wanted to make sure from a debt to income ratio perspective, we're kind of doing the right thing, or do we need to consider selling the house that we're living in now and just rent the last year or so that the house is being built, because the house is going to take about 18 months to be built.

Yeah. Well, it really is going to come down to how much you have in the way of a down payment, because that's going to drive the loan to value for the construction loan versus your income. What I'm hearing, though, is because you have this other property that you're going to liquidate, which I would imagine the proceeds of that, whatever that might be after the mortgage is satisfied, plus the expenses to sell it, I imagine that would be your down payment. And then because you have really strong income, I can't imagine it's going to be difficult for you to qualify for that mortgage. I think the question is just if you have a mortgage on that primary residence, are you in a position to cover both the construction loan and your primary residence for these 18 months that you'd be building the house?

But at the end of the day, I suspect everything would be okay, but unless somebody looks at those ratios just to determine what you would qualify for, that's really going to be the ultimate test. Sure. Okay, that makes sense. And you're correct, the proceeds that we have out of the first sale, that'll be a down payment plus another 150 that we have saved as well. That's great. So that's our plan right now. It sounds like a good plan. I think if it were me, I'd avoid moving twice just because it's expensive to move and rental prices are sky high right now. And so if you can service the debt and hang on to the current house you're in, I like the fact that you're going to go ahead and unload the second property now while prices are still high. We could see a softening in the market here over the next six or 12 months, so let's go ahead and lock in the proceeds from that second home. Let's not cover the expenses of moving twice, so stay right where you're at, assuming you qualify and service all the debt. Normally, we'd be looking for a construction to permanent loan that just converts.

You may want to take a look at that, but you'll want to make sure that you can get the rate adjusted down when it converts to permanent, hoping that the interest rates are lower when the house is done than they are today. Thanks for your call, Keith. God bless you, and we'll be right back on MoneyWise. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live.

Hey, our team is away from the studio, so we're not here. Don't call in, but we've got some great questions we lined up in advance. We'll go there in just a moment, but first, let me remind you, MoneyWise is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. We rely on your support to do what we do on the airwaves each day and in our app and on the web, so if you'd consider a gift, we'd certainly be grateful.

Just head to MoneyWise.org and click Donate. Let's head back to the phones to Texas we go. Bill, you're next on the program, sir.

Go ahead. Okay, my question is kind of unusual perhaps. Those of us that are believers and believe in the end times realize that a rapture is around the corner somewhere here, and so we're going to disappear.

My question is this. If I have heirs that I would like to be sure have my assets in the case of a rapture and I'm gone and they're not, how can we make sure they get their hands on the assets? There will be no death certificate, say, for example.

So, yeah, it is a bit interesting to think about. I would suspect there would be a death certificate because if whatever percent of the population is gone because they've been reunited with Jesus and are now in heaven, they're not here and I guess they'd be missing persons for a while, but at some point they would be, I think a death certificate would be issued, and that's where a beneficiary designation, so a transfer on death or something like that could kick in. I think if you want to solve for a situation where this person or this group of people is considered missing and therefore no death certificate issued, the only way to do that would be through a joint account where there's co-ownership in a situation like that or through a trust. So you could draft a trust that basically if you're incapacitated or in this case missing, the trust goes into effect and then the successor trustee that you would name would distribute the assets outside of probate, outside the courts, based on your wishes. So that would probably be the way to go because then all assets, including the home and everything else, could be titled in the name of the trust and you could allow for whatever provisions you want in that revocable trust, which becomes irrevocable at your death or when you're incapacitated, and then the successor trustee would distribute the assets accordingly. I think that would probably be the way to go to solve for the situation you're describing, Bill. Could it be a living trust?

Oh yeah, absolutely. A living trust and it would name certain conditions, including those conditions that happen when you're still alive, which if that's how you're considered, if you're still considered alive even though you've disappeared, the triggering event could result in assets being passed on. You know, the trust, I suppose you could put in a clause that says something like, you know, if missing for more than 60 days, certain things trigger.

Yeah, I think that's right. So I would connect with an estate attorney, Bill, and just talk through that and have the trust drafted the way you're describing and I think that would allow you to have some peace of mind that you've addressed the potential situation that loved ones who haven't committed their lives to Christ are still here after the rapture. Okay, kind of an unusual thought, but it's worth thinking about. Yeah, a very interesting question today and a good reminder that what's most important, folks, above everything else is that we have surrendered our lives to Christ, that we've accepted His atonement, His substitutionary atonement on the cross for our sins and that He allows to be reconciled to the Father, that we might have eternal life and be in fellowship with Him. And that's what's most important today. And if you haven't trusted Jesus, there's a toll-free number you can call to find out how you can place your faith in Him. It's 888-NEED-HIM. 888-NEED-HIM. And someone there will be glad to tell you more about how you can have that confidence and the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Bill, thanks for your call today. To Missouri we go. Becky, thank you for calling.

Go right ahead. Yes, I am 70 years old and my husband passed away about three years ago and he was the one that took care of all of our finances. And I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I just don't know much about it at all. But anyway, not too long after we were married, he invested in Edward D. Jones. And right now, I have like about $300,000 in that firm.

Well, since listening to this program, I've become aware of how important it is to be biblically responsible. And I've kind of – I used that Christian investing tool and found out that, you know, there's not so much – well, partly, you know, not so much there. But anyway, I was approached by a company about annuity and I didn't know much about that. And so I just really want to do the right thing with my money.

It's not – I don't use it as my income because I'm a retired school teacher. And so I really want to know what the best thing would be. Well, first of all, Becky, let me just assure you, you're in a situation that so many others find themselves in. There is no reason to be embarrassed about your lack of understanding of financial matters. And that's where wise counsel comes in. So it sounds like your husband has provided for you even in death as you all have been able to accumulate some assets. And now it's just a matter of really moving forward and being found faithful in managing those and being responsible to do it in a way that's going to allow you to provide for your needs for this next season, for whatever God has for you. And I love the fact that you want to do that in a way that allows you to reflect your values as a believer in your investments. You are not living on this account, is that right?

You're not pulling anything out? That's right, yeah. Okay, so this money can just continue to grow. Right. Okay, very good. Well, likely it hasn't been.

Well, right, yeah, it's been going the other way as of late. I understand that. I think with regard to – Edward Jones is a great firm. There's some wonderful advisors there, so I don't have any problem with that. I think the extent to which you really want your values reflected in your investments, that requires an advisor that has a unique skill set and understanding of what we call faith-based investing where you're either avoiding certain companies that are misaligned with your Christian values or you're embracing other companies or investments because they in particular seek to use investments that cause human flourishing or make a kingdom impact, that type of thing. And certainly because this is a newer area, although there's many now wonderful investments in this space, most advisors would not be familiar with this. So I think that would be the first question is does your advisor have the ability to offer these types of investment strategies to you? And if not, perhaps you'd want to look for somebody that does, who can bring sound investment planning and strategy to bear alongside an understanding of the investments that you're buying and owning and that's what you are, an owner of these companies, even a small percentage owner and making sure that those companies are ones that align with your values. And there's fund families available like Eventide and Timothy and so many others that can offer that.

There's even something to offer exchange-traded funds and many of them are available at Edward Jones. So what I would probably do, Becky, is talk to your advisor about that. Let him or her know that that's a desire of yours and hopefully they'll be really clear about whether or not this is an area of expertise that they have. And if not, if you wanted to look for another advisor, you could go to our website moneywise.org and click Find a CKA. That stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor.

I'd interview several there in Missouri and find the one that's the best fit for you that could offer this type of investment. Does that make sense? Yeah, that would be great. Good.

All right. Well, I think that will get you pointed in the right direction. Do you have any other concerns just as you think about your financial life other than making sure that the investments are positioned appropriately? Do you know anything about the Samaritan's Purse annuity?

Well, I'm very familiar with Samaritan's Purse, a wonderful ministry doing great work all over the globe. Yeah. You know, annuities, would it be a charitable gift annuity? Is that what? Yeah, I think that's the way.

Yeah. So I'm a fan of charitable gift annuities, essentially where you create, you take, you know, an asset and put it into an annuity that creates an income stream for you that ultimately then will benefit a ministry that is near to your heart. And so I think that could be a great option.

Now, in your situation, you're not looking for income because your income is covered. So it's certainly something you could look at. You could also just, you know, keep investing this and growing it so that it's there if you needed it for, let's say, long term care or major medical expenses down the road, the ability to tap into it.

You know, if you needed, let's say you needed three years worth of care and that was going to cost, you know, one hundred thousand dollars a year. I like the fact that that would be there and available to you. And then if you don't need it, then it could be, you know, given away at your death to Samaritan's Purse or whatever ministry you wanted. So that would be the other option. But I kind of like in your situation because you're not looking for that income stream that the charitable gift annuity would provide.

I kind of like the idea of you hanging on to the principle, but making sure it's invested so that it can grow on a conservative basis over time. OK. All right. I appreciate it so much. You're welcome, Becky. God bless you. Thanks for calling today.

We appreciate you checking in with us. Well, folks, we've covered a lot of ground today. You know, as we think about applying God's wisdom to our financial decisions, it can seem overwhelming. Like there's so many choices and annuities and investments and credit cards and credit scores and identity theft, and it can be overwhelming. And really, we can boil it down into some simple principles that all come from God's Word.

Here's what they are. Number one, we want to live within our means. Sounds simple.

It's not. You've got to be intentional and have a spending plan to do it. Number two, we want to avoid the use of debt.

Borrowing is not a sin, but there are clear warnings in Scripture around debt, so avoid use of debt. Number three, have some margin. That is, something left over at the end of the month for you to save and give beyond your tithe. Margin is so key. And by the way, it's really helpful in marriage as well, studies show. Thirdly, you want to have some long-term goals.

The longer term the perspective, the better the financial decision today. And those goals should align with your values. And then five, we want to give generously. God's heart is that we want to be connected into His activity, and we can do that through our giving.

Those five simple principles will put you in a position to experience God's best. That's going to do it for us today, folks. Thanks for tuning in.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to Jim, Amy, Dan, and Gabby, and thank you for being here as well. Hope you'll come back and join us next time for another edition of MoneyWise Live. We'll see you then. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.