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Have you ever wanted to read through some of the research on Hey Steve! programs we pass on to people?

So, where are we today? Well, advertisers spend billions to convince you that you're not happy with your lot in life. But make no mistake, God's Word still calls envy a sin. By definition, it's the sin of jealousy over the blessings and achievements of others. So envy and jealousy are really the same thing.

By either name, God's Word calls it a sin in several places, most notably as the tenth commandment in Exodus 20-17. It reads, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. And, of course, to covet is yet another term for envy.

Today our neighbors aren't likely to have oxen or donkeys to covet, but we can still envy their new SUV or in-ground pool. Like the sin of pride, envy also leads to many other sins. In James 4 we find, You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. There is a difference between envy and the proper motivation to better one's life.

For one, you are willing to work hard and you are content with what the Lord provides. But with envy you feel entitled and deprived. You feel that someone, society, or even God owes you something. Envy is ugly and destructive. James 3 16 tells us, For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.

So let's look at some of those vile practices. Envy rears its ugly head very early in the Bible. In Genesis 4, Cain is jealous of his brother because God favored Abel's offering but not his. In verse 8 we read, Now Cain said to his brother Abel, Let's go out to the field.

While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. So envy was the cause of the very first murder. It was also envy that made Joseph's brothers feel justified in selling him into slavery in Genesis 37. There we read, So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit.

Of course, Joseph's brothers would even have killed him had Reuben not intervened. We also see the destructive power of envy in two stories from David's life. First, when Saul became jealous of David's fame after he slew Goliath, women sang David's praises in 1 Samuel 18, 8, and 9. It reads, And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands.

And what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day on. Having first become the victim of envy, David later gave in to this sin himself by coveting and taking another man's wife, Bathsheba, in 2 Samuel 11. Worse, he sent her husband Uriah to certain death in battle to cover his sin.

In verse 15, David tells Joab, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die. Envy or jealousy is a powerful emotion that we must always be on guard against. Proverbs 27-4 warns, Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? So how do you know if envy has taken hold in your life? Well one way would be to look at your finances. Are you living beyond your means, running up credit card debt to finance a lifestyle that you can't afford? If you don't get it under control and learn to live within your means, you're headed for financial disaster.

Here's how you can slay the sin of envy. First, pray that the Holy Spirit would give you contentment with what the Lord provides. Hebrews 13-5 reads, Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Second, if you need help setting up a budget and finding ways to cut your spending, download the free MoneyWise app.

It has three ways to set up your spending plan and you can choose the one that works best for you. Just look for MoneyWise Biblical Finance wherever you get your apps. Folks, we're going to pause for a break, but we'll be back with much more on MoneyWise Live Biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

Stick around. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live, I'm Rob West, your host. Psalm 24 one says, The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. You know, if we understand that truth and apply it to our lives, we realize our role is not that of owner.

It's that of steward, which changes everything about how we manage God's money. We want to help you do that on this program each day. We're not here today, though. We're taking a little time off, so don't call in, but we're going to help some folks that we've lined up in advance with some great questions, so we'll head right back to the phones. All right, we're going to begin in Orlando, Florida today. Milton will be our first caller. Milton, you go right ahead. Hey, Rob, God bless. Thank you, sir. Actually, my normal show is in Orlando, but that's my cell phone. I mean, actually in North Carolina. OK, very good.

How can I help you? Yes, I would like to know if it's worth it to invest on the 401k when the company doesn't have any match. I saw one of those programs that she was saying that it is only worth it to invest on the 401k up to the match and no more after that. I was wondering if the company doesn't have any matching, is it still worth to put money into it?

Yes, I would tend to agree with that. I think you absolutely want to start up to the matching portion in your 401k. I prefer the Roth IRA, especially for someone who's younger, has time on their side, and those dollars could go in after tax and then grow tax-free between that point and retirement. The challenge is you can only put in $6,000 in a Roth IRA in a calendar year, and then if you're over 50, you can add another thousand to it, so that's $7,000. In order to be able to save 10 to 15 percent of your income for retirement, you're going to reach that max and then probably have more that you want to put away. My typical default approach for somebody, again, who has quite a bit of time between now and retirement would be to say, let's start with the 401k up to the match, in your case you don't have that, so let's go to the Roth IRA. We can put in $6,000 or $7,000 per person per year, so if you're married, you could put in $12,000 or $14,000 through a spousal IRA in addition to your own, and then perhaps at that point go back to the 401k to get up to the percentage target you're looking for so you have enough going into retirement savings each year. The nice thing about having both options, Milton, is that you will have both the tax-deferred and the tax-free buckets available in retirement, so depending on what's going on with the tax code and which one is more financially prudent to draw from, you'll be able to take your choice between the tax-deferred option and the tax-free, which is a nice option to have given that we don't know what things will look like decades down the road.

Does all that make sense, though? No, you're basically saying that put most of my money into a Roth and then whatever I got left to put it into the 401k, although there is no match? Yes, sir, because we want the target to put aside for retirement, and this is just a rule of thumb. It's better to do some real financial planning with a financial planner to determine exactly how much you need to be saving for what you're ultimately trying to accumulate to be able to provide for your needs in retirement alongside Social Security.

But a target rule of thumb might be 10 to 15 percent of your income, and in order to do that, most folks will max out that Roth IRA and still want to put more away. And that's where you would then go back to the 401k and do your additional retirement contributions there alongside the Roth IRA. Do you follow? All right. Sounds great. Yes, sounds great. OK. Do I have time for one more question? Yes, sir. Very quickly.

Go right ahead. OK. I was checking on some of the bank institutions in the website bankreg.com. Yes, sir. And they have some pretty attractive rates, like some of them have like over three points, like three point five percent. But some of those institutions, I never heard of them. Can you trust the institution on that website to put your money in? Yeah. Are you looking at online banks primarily, Milton? Correct. Yes, I see one here like an upgrade bank that comes up with like three point five percent. That's pretty good. But can you trust that bank?

Yeah. Well, I think the key is, number one, in terms of the safety of the money, you'd want to look for that FDIC coverage. If there's FDIC insurance on that account, then at the end of the day, I would feel comfortable with that. But you've got to look beyond that to say, what are they known for in terms of customer service?

How responsive are they? Are you able to get through on the phone or online? If this is an online bank, there's no brick and mortar branch you can walk into. But the service side is a factor in addition to the rate. But at the end of the day, the FDIC insurance is the primary component. So what I would do is I'd start by searching for which online banks have the most attractive rates. Then I would look for reviews on their service.

But I would ensure that no matter who I did business with, it had FDIC insurance. OK? OK. So the reviews, sometimes they show up with the stars on the actual website. That's right. So if they have no stars, that means that there's no reviews.

Yeah. I would look for something that has a good number of reviews. And I would look for something that has at least four or five stars.

Here's the thing. The difference in the rates from those banks you may have never heard of versus ones that are a little bit more established is going to be pretty small in the online banking world. So for instance, Marcus, that's the retail outfit of Goldman Sachs, a massive financial institution, Ally Bank, they're known for their customer service, Capital One 360.

They're one of the biggest in the country. All of these are going to have very competitive rates. Now, you may be able to get five or 10 basis points more from an online bank you've never heard of.

But it might be worth it to settle for just slightly less but to go with an organization, a financial institution that's known for a bit more service, perhaps has been a bit more established. That's where these ratings can come in and you can look at other reviews beyond that. All right.

Yeah. I think I wrote the three ones, Capital One 360, Marcus, and what was the other one? The last one was Ally Bank, A-L-L-Y. And you can certainly go to bankrate.com and see if there's better options out there. But those three are both all three online options that have very attractive rates and they have strong financial strength as institutions.

And they're known for their customer service. And I think that's another piece of this that you ought to consider as you make your final decision. Absolutely. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Yes, sir. Milton, thank you for your call today.

God bless you. Before we take our first break here today, an email from Elizabeth. She writes, my husband's interested in investing in gold and silver. I'd like to buy him some for his birthday. I only have about a hundred to two hundred dollars to spend. The price of gold is so high, is it worth getting gold or would you recommend just going with silver or something else?

And it's a great question, Elizabeth. You know, with the spot price of gold, as you alluded to, it's going to be difficult to find a gold coin that you can buy for a couple of hundred dollars. On the other hand, you could buy several silver coins for that amount or even a hundred dollars. The American Silver Eagles are selling for about thirty one dollars apiece. Or if your husband, if you wanted to give him a silver bar, a one ounce silver bar is selling for around twenty seven dollars, five ounces for one hundred and thirty three.

So that could be an option, kind of a nice, maybe unexpected gift that he might appreciate. But you will have trouble doing that in gold. You'll probably look, need to look to one of the other precious metals. We appreciate you writing to us, Elizabeth. If you have a question you'd like read on the air, you can send it to us at questions at MoneyWise.org. Hey, folks, let me remind you before we take our break that the MoneyWise app is available in your app store. Just search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance.

You'll find broadcast archives. You'll find our money management system where you can use our digital envelope system or just our tracking system. Whatever you want to do, it's right there for the taking. MoneyWise app, search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance. We're going to pause. MoneyWise Live will return right after this. Stay with us. Thankful that you've joined us today for MoneyWise Live, I'm Rob West, your host. This is where we apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices. Thanks for tuning in.

Our team is taking some time off. We're away from the studio, so today's not the day to call in, but we've got some great questions that we lined up in advance. So let's head right back to the phones. To North Carolina, Diane, you're next on the program. Go right ahead. I work for the government and as a supplement to our retirement, we get a thrift savings plan account.

Yes, ma'am. I'm almost 70 and it's my understanding that between now and 72 or less amount of time, I have to roll that over into another vehicle of savings. You're allowed to leave that in the TSP if you'd like and your required minimum would kick in at age 72, Diane, and you have a provision inside the TSP, which is actually unlike other retirement plans. It's called a still working provision where you are not required to take that required minimum. If that money remains in the TSP, you're still working. You're able to delay that required minimum until you stop working. I've recently been told that TSP accounts are not FDIC insured any longer.

Do you know if that is correct? Well, they wouldn't have been FDIC insured. That's for FDIC insured banks or savings associations. So the TSP account would not be protected under FDIC. It would be protected under, well, in this case, it's a retirement account. So there's other tax codes that offer protection there, but not FDIC, and that wouldn't be a change. That would be the way it has always been. So then I can feel safe that my TSP account is safe. Yeah. It's absolutely backed by the government, so you wouldn't have to worry about that. I think at this point, you need to be looking at what are the investments that you're selecting inside the TSP, what are the right sub accounts for you to have at your age and based on your goals and objectives, and not taking unnecessary risk to preserve what you have, to grow it modestly so that when you need to rely on it as perhaps a supplemental income source, it'll be there.

At that point, once you stop working, you could roll it over to an IRA, and then you would begin taking your required minimum distributions at that point. So I'm invested in the G Fund, and it seems to lose money a lot compared to the other funds more so. Yeah. So are you 100% of the G Fund? Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Well, the G Fund is the government fund, and just given where things are with rising interest rates, the government securities can lose value. They won't lose much, but you can see a decline, a very minor decline in that over time. But it's relatively safe given everything that's going on in the market right now versus a stock fund. I think the key for you is, especially with inflation right now, you probably want to look at what is the right mix of investments in order to offset that, especially as this market recovers. We've seen a lot of strength recently. That doesn't mean we may not retest our lows.

We absolutely could. But I think the idea is I would probably want some allocation to stocks, could be 20%, 30%, which gives you the ability to allow this portfolio to have a growth component. So as the market recovers, you could participate. But that G Fund is going to be fairly stable, although there's just not going to be a whole lot in the way of returns over time. That's encouraging. Another question, have you ever, which I'm sure you have, heard of self-directed IRA? Sure.

Yeah. So self-directed IRA allows you to invest in alternative investments. So the most common use of a self-directed IRA, although there are certainly many others, would be for real estate. So you have the ability to leave your retirement funds in a tax-deferred environment and yet direct them to other asset classes like real estate or could be oil and gas royalties, could be any number of things that allows you to participate in the growth of that asset without having to take a distribution and creating a taxable event. The key is you'd have to find a self-directed IRA custodian. Not all brokerage institutions handle self-directed IRAs. So you'll want to find a custodian that specializes in self-directed IRAs if that's what you're looking for.

I think the key though is as long as you're continuing to work for the federal government, if you don't want to take those required minimums, you need to leave that money in the TSP. So then I was looking at Strata Trust Company. Have you heard of them? I have, but I wouldn't be able to weigh in on any particular companies. I think the key for you is to do your research and just kind of read a lot of reviews and see what information you can find on these as you compare your options. But at the end of the day, it could be a great option for you depending on what you're looking to invest in as long as it fits with your time horizon, your goals and objectives.

A self-directed IRA can be a very effective tool. So hope that helps you, Diane. We appreciate you checking in with us. May God bless you and call us back anytime.

Let's stay in North Carolina. I believe, is it Gammie? How can I help you? Yes, sir.

Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling on behalf of my sister that somebody some time ago hacked her account and took about $18,000 from her account. Now she's a traveling nurse living in Mexico, but she has an account here in an American bank.

I don't want to name a name or nothing like that. And this bank has offered to replace 14,000 of that money. Some sort of credit system they're going to use. So we're wondering is what's going to happen to the rest of that money?

Nobody seems to be able to answer or give her a good answer. Yeah. I'd love to weigh in on that. I've got to take a quick break and you stay right there and we'll tackle this one right on the other side. We'll be right back.

Stay with us. We are grateful for support from Eventide Investments on the Money Wise program. Eventide's approach to values-based investing is grounded in the belief that humankind was created in the image of God with intrinsic dignity, value, and worth. Eventide calls this investing that makes the world rejoice. More information is available at eventideinvestments.com.

That's eventideinvestments.com. We are grateful for support from Soundmind Investing in the Money Wise program. If you have money in a retirement account or just a general investing account, you know the stock market can sometimes seem like a rollercoaster. But it is possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind in investing no matter what's happening in the market. You can see a short video webinar on that topic at soundmindinvesting.org. Since 1990, Soundmind Investing has sought to offer financial wisdom for living well.

soundmindinvesting.org. Studying the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament is a great way to study the Scriptures, but it can't be confusing. The biblical authors came from different cultures at a different time, and they used different styles. I'm Michael Radelnick. I teamed up with my good friend Ed Bloon to bring you the Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy. It covers and explains in context virtually every Messianic prediction, and it all points to the Promised One, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah. Get your copy at moodypublishers.com.

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Getting Over Yourself by Dean and Sarah is available at moodypublishers.com. What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values? How about someone who will take the time to explain your options in plain English? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice. To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit moneywiselive.org and click the link that says Find a CKA.

That's moneywiselive.org. I'm Miriam Neff. And I'm Valerie Neff-Hogan with Wise Women Managing Money. Have you listed the gifts you need to buy right across your long Christmas list? It's not about the stuff. What communicates your personal care? Basically it won't be the most costly gift that makes the keepsake list. What do people treasure? Mom, you give picture mugs and family picture calendars. Memorable events and defining moments. We save our picture mugs in the homes we've lived in, baby faces and siblings displayed. No clothing item is ever treasured for that long. It takes thought and planning and it's tailored to the person's interest. And most important, the gift is more meaningful.

We've been creating a family calendar every year, pictures important to each person that year and their birthdate noted in the calendar, and these are being saved. This feature at wisewomenmanagingmoney.com. You're listening to Money Wise 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. Just before the break, we were talking to Gammy about, unfortunately, a family member who had had funds stolen through identity theft or fraud related to a loss in their bank account, wanted to know why the bank wasn't refunding all of the money.

And you know, here's the key. This is not protected by FDIC. This would be up to the bank to refund. Most banks do refund losses that are due to fraud or identity theft. The key is you have to report it on a timely basis. If it's reported on a timely basis, and then normally you would be asked to fill out an affidavit describing the events and verifying that it was not you that took the fraudulent transactions, whether they were fraudulent checks that were cashed or this was done electronically. Once that's done, and again, if it's reported on a timely basis, most banks will refund you in the entirety. If they don't, they may be in violation of what's called the Electronic Fund Transfer Act if in fact it was through electronic means.

But again, it's going to come down to the timeliness of how this was reported. So I would work through your bank to provide all the necessary documentation to let them know that you did not initiate these transactions. Hopefully it was done, identified and reported quickly. And if so, and you complete the proper paperwork, I would hope that they would make you whole on that.

If they do not, you have a couple of options. One would be to engage the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at CFPB.gov. You could also engage an attorney.

Often a letter from an attorney will be enough to get a bank to take action, especially if you can, and they, I suspect through their own investigations, will verify this was not you that did the transaction. This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem every year. The FTC reports that 4.2 million customer fraud and identity theft reports came in that year alone.

The losses, nearly $6 billion. So this is happening all the time. And the key is to monitor your accounts closely, monitor your credit report closely, and make sure you identify these fraudulent transactions on a timely basis. And a reputable bank should make you whole in just about every situation. We appreciate your call, Gammie. Let's see, to Louisiana. Hey, Kathy, thanks for your patience. Go right ahead.

Oh, hi. Yeah, my question is, my husband and I were self-employed most of our lives. And we just saved money, like for our retirements. We put some money in IRAs, but we didn't, but outside of the IRAs, we saved money that we were wanting to use for retirement. But my husband was always very cautious about, he was always concerned about putting it like in mutual funds or something like that, because he didn't, he was worried that, you know, we wouldn't have the money when we needed it. So mostly what we did is just put money in the bank to get the interest rates in the bank.

Yes. And, you know, that I've heard that that's not a good idea because the money is not keeping up with inflation. And I wanted to, and then we had accounts like in different institutions, like our IRAs were in one institution and some money was in other, you know, brokerage firms. And I also had heard that it was not a good idea to do that.

It was better to keep it like all in one place. Sure. Let me ask you, how much do you all have in the way of investable assets right now, Kathy, roughly?

It's, it's probably over $500,000. Okay. And have you, have you always handled this yourself?

Just you and your husband? Yes. Okay. Well, I mean, we had it, the IRAs are like in a brokerage firm and, and we had some of the money like in managed portfolio accounts, like with Vanguard and stuff. But Yeah.

Well, here's my recommendation. I think you're right in the sense that you would be well-served to consolidate a lot of this. I think multiple accounts at various financial institutions, whether that's brokerages and banks just creates more complexity vis-a-vis the conversation we had just a moment ago with Gammy in terms of fraudulent transactions, that's just, you know, more accounts you're going to have to stay on top of to make sure none of those are ever compromised. And I think the idea here is that you all have been diligent in your savings.

That's great. Clearly you've modest, you've had a modest lifestyle, you've had margin and you put that aside. Now in this season of life, I think what's important is that you have a strategy to manage this in a way that makes sense to yes, overcome the effects of inflation, which is more important now than ever to protect the assets that you've accumulated and to grow them at a reasonable rate so that if you need to live on them and convert that to an income stream, you have the ability to do that without depleting it. Or if you want to just let it continue to grow and have it available if you needed it for long-term care, which could run, you know, $4,000 to $8,000 a month, depending on what type of care you need at some point.

And you know, by the way, 70% of Americans 65 and older will need that sort of care for at least 18 months to three years, and it can be very expensive. So I think having a plan to manage this makes a lot of sense. Now it doesn't mean you need to take unnecessary risk, but I think working with an advisor who could give you an overall strategy to say how much of this should be protected in bank products like, you know, CDs and money markets where it's very stable, how much should be in bonds, fixed income, you know, type government bonds or maybe even very high quality short-term duration corporate bonds or and how much should be in stocks, whether that's individual stocks or through mutual funds. And that then is a coordinated strategy that's looking to the long-term because remember, even in retirement, if the Lord tarries and you guys are in good health, you're going to need this money to last potentially for a couple of decades or more. And if that's the case, we want to have it growing. We want to protect what you've got and we want the ability for it to become an income stream.

So for that reason, Kathy, my recommendation would be that you recognize this is a big responsibility and it's a lot of money, so I'd hire an investment advisor after you interview two or three and find the one that's the best fit to actually help you develop and deploy and then oversee an investment strategy that makes sense for you and consolidate this into just one or two financial institutions with a high quality brokerage firm like a Fidelity or Schwab or a TD Ameritrade, but where there's an advisor making those buy and sell decisions for you with, of course, your goals and objectives in mind. Does that make sense? Yes. The only thing is that I kind of wanted to find and I see that you advertise finding a certified kingdom advisor on our website at MoneyWise.org. Just click find a CKA.

Let me do this. I'm going to take a break here, but it sounds like you have just a little bit more you want to talk about, so let's do that offline. But again, to find a CKA, just head to MoneyWise.org and click the button, find a CKA. We'll be right back with more questions on MoneyWise. Stay with us. This is our final segment of a broadcast we previously recorded.

Thanks so much for being with us today and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of today's program. As you're considering how to give to ministries that support your values and equip God's people to serve his kingdom, there are a variety of unique ways that you can give to MoneyWise. By the way, we are completely listener supported as a not-for-profit ministry and we only do what we do as a result of listener support. Well, you can donate actually stock, real estate, life insurance, or even include MoneyWise in your estate plan to help us expand the message of God's financial wisdom. If this is something you'd like to discuss, you're a part of the MoneyWise family, you count on this broadcast and you'd like to help others learn God's wisdom in addressing their finances, well, we'd love to hear from you. So as a next step, we would just encourage you to click the Contact Us button at MoneyWise.org and someone from our team will get right back to you. Again, MoneyWise.org, just click Contact Us if you'd like to know how to donate appreciated assets or have MoneyWise included in your estate plan. And thanks in advance for your interest. This came into us through the MoneyWise community.

Let me tackle this question today, it was a good one. Jane says, I have a 24-year-old grandson who needs help. His spending is out of control, his parents are not like this and have tried to help. He does okay when he's with them and they keep track of his spending, but he moved out and is making a lot of unwise decisions. He's now in debt to the tune of about $5,000, he has no job, he doesn't have a clue what he would like to do, and this is heartbreaking, of course. What advice do you have for me?

Thank you for your ministry. And Jane, I know this has to be heartbreaking to watch your grandchild go through this. Obviously he needs to make his sole priority getting a job so that he can then begin to develop a spending plan and keep his expenses paid, get out of this cycle of debt. The challenge is, if he's been getting a lot of help along the way, and that is kind of what he's accustomed to, perhaps he hasn't really learned the value of hard work. And unfortunately, and this is going to be challenging, some tough love may be in order here so he can understand and really appreciate before he's got a family and these problems get even bigger, he can appreciate the consequences of his action.

And so I think you may need to look at exercising some tough love there. Second, I would encourage you to suggest that he get a career assessment. Perhaps the one we've mentioned a couple of times already today, careerdirect.org, could be a great resource, Jane, because not only does it look at his skills and his interests and his aptitude, but it also looks at his values, kind of how God has wired him and his giftings by God's design. And so that could be perhaps a gift you give him, which is one of these career assessments and some counseling along with it. And then lastly, I would say, as you're encouraging him, if you want to be of help financially, just make sure you do it in a way that you encourage the right behaviors because so often we can give money in a way that just really doesn't reinforce the good behaviors. In fact, it can continue negative behaviors if we're not careful. And so, for instance, maybe once he gets that job and he's on a budget, you say, listen, every payment you make to your debt, I'll match it if you send something over and above the minimum payment.

You know, things like that that I think really could encourage him to make the right choices. But we'll ask the Lord to give you some wisdom, Jane, as you navigate this, I know it certainly can be challenging. All right. Back to the phones.

We go to Texas. Maria, thank you for calling. I understand you have a Social Security question. I'm 66 years old and I was 66 in March. I'm considering to retire, but I heard that no matter how much longer I work, the amount of money Social Security will pay me will not increase. Whatever the amount is, it's set. So if I work to 70, it doesn't mean like, for example, I won't get it instead of getting 1200 a month, I'll get 1500 a month. That makes sense? I hear what you're saying.

Yeah, it's just it's not good information that you've received. The way Social Security works is if you delay benefits beyond full retirement age, whatever you would have received based on your high 35, your highest 35 years of earnings, whatever you would have received at full retirement age, and that's available to you to get directly from Social Security Administration. That amount, if you delay it, will increase by 8% a year. It actually increases by one 12th of 8% every month until age 70. So if you delay fully, you could have a check, you know, perhaps 24 to 32% higher than you would have if you claimed at 66 or 67.

And so, you know, that is absolutely the way it works. The other piece of it, which applies whether you delay it or not is the other way to increase your benefit check is if you continue to work, and in any year you work, you replace one of your previous 35 high earning years with a higher year, if any of those 35 are lower than what you continue to work and earn, then you can replace one of those and that will also increase your benefit check. But that's going to happen whether you delay Social Security or not.

But if you delay only up until age 70, it caps there, you will get an increase in 8% a year. Okay, thank you. Great. Okay, absolutely. Maria, we appreciate your call today. Let's head to, well, we'll stay in Texas.

Sandy, go ahead. You're next on the program. Yeah, somewhere along the line, I got some bad counsel about fear of the markets to take my money out. So I've been out, you know, my retirement account, I've been out for quite a few years. I am invested in money market, but I'm not making any money. So I still think that I probably have this fear of, you know, obviously the unknown. I'm trying to figure out, okay, so how do I get back in? How do I get help with investing? And I don't think I'm going to do it on my own, even though I thought I would.

Yes, ma'am. Well, I would concur with that. You know, I think it can be very emotional and emotions, you know, typically when it comes to investing cause us to make the wrong decisions. We tend to operate of a fear mentality and with the time where we should be thinking about adding to our investments, or at least at the very least staying the course, we do the opposite and we pull back because we see the account dropping, even though it's unrealized, we lock it in and go to cash, which it sounds like is what you did here. And you know, it's not something you should feel bad about.

It's just a natural human emotion, but that's where having some wise counsel with some expert advice and management can really be helpful. Sandy, what do you have in the IRA right now? Well, it's down to probably about $430,000.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, so obviously you've spent a lifetime amassing a significant amount of money. We want to manage it wisely. I mean, typically as you enter retirement, you'd probably want to have minimum of 30% in stocks. You could be as high as 40 if you wanted to at 65 when you're retiring, and probably the balance in a fixed income portfolio. But where it's really managed, and I think having somebody who understands your goals and objectives is not doing something they want to do, but really taking what they understand about who you are, what your income needs are, how much risk tolerance you have, they'll build and manage a portfolio that I think will give you some peace of mind over time.

And by moving toward a lower percentage of stocks, that's going to kind of smooth out the volatility as well. So what I would recommend that you do is head to our website, MoneyWise.org, and click the button that says Find a CKA. So we trust here at MoneyWise the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. This is the gold standard designation in financial services for men and women who've met high standards and competency and character, pastor references, client references, statement of faith. But also they've been trained to apply biblical wisdom to their advice and counsel, and therefore they've earned the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. I'd interview two or three CKAs in your area, try to find the one that's the best fit, and that would be the direction that I would go.

And then you'd have somebody who's a trusted advisor that you can meet with regularly, communicate with often, but they would take responsibility with your goals in mind of deploying these assets. And they're probably going to stage it into the market, probably not all in one day, but over a period of time to get you back in, but with an allocation that makes sense based on what you're trying to accomplish. Does that make sense to you?

It does. So what's going on with the market? Is it a good time to get in now? I mean, I know things have been down. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, I think it certainly is. And here's why. Nobody knows what the next six months or a year will hold. Could we go down another 20% from here? Sure. Could we be positive?

Absolutely. We just don't know. Nobody does in the short term.

If they tell you they do, they're misleading you. Market's off 400 today. It could be up 1,000 tomorrow. But what we do know is that you're going to be buying in lower than where the market was beginning of the year, although maybe you missed a little bit of the recovery we've seen, although I think that's probably temporary.

And the idea of systematically deploying this in over, let's say, a six-month period or a four-month period is going to allow you to kind of smooth out that reentry so you're not just doing it all on a single day. The reality is we're going to trust the long-term trends here and not the near term because we just don't know about the near term. But as long as we're looking out 10 years and if you're in good health and the Lord tarries, you need this money to last decades.

So we don't really care what happens over the next year or two. We're looking long-term. And I think from that standpoint, we can trust that, yeah, let's start moving back into the market with a well-thought-out strategy, and that's going to serve you well over time. Sandy, we appreciate your call today. All the best to you as you think about this next season of life.

And 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. 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. God bless you, boy.