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Have you ever wanted to read through some of the things you will do with your finances?

Hi, I'm Rob West. Okay, that's a play on a famous JFK quote, but I think it describes the need to take a proactive role with your finances in the New Year coming up. Mark Biller joins us today to tell us how to do that.

Then we have some great questions lined up for you. But don't call in today because we're pre-recorded. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our friend Mark Biller is executive editor at Sound Mind Investing, where they've been busy coming up with their annual list of financial moves you can make in the New Year. Mark, great to have you back on the program. Thanks, Rob.

Good to be back with you. Mark, this is a great resource that you all post every year to help folks improve their financial picture. It's titled, of course, Your 10 Most Important Financial Moves for 2023, and folks can access it at soundmindinvesting.org.

But it's a great resource. It's not just a list of 10 things, is it? No, it's really a roundup of planning suggestions for the year ahead. And rather than providing a one size fits all kind of list, instead, we go ahead and serve up a broad range of ideas. And the idea there really is for the reader then to go through that list and pick their own personal top 10. And that will come from the 70 or so suggestions that we discuss in that article, but it makes it very tailored to each individual.

And we've found over the years that people who are willing to do that and go through that exercise and then follow through on those specific items, really, it helps them become a better steward of their resources and helps them move closer to their long term goals. Yeah, that's helpful. All right, well, you had these suggestions broken down into several categories. So let's go over them. And perhaps you can give us an idea of what to expect in each. Mark, let's start with spiritual and financial fundamentals.

Yeah, sounds good. And as we dive in, I should also note that there are links to additional articles and resources for each one of these suggestions on the SMI website. So if listeners hear something that they want more information on, or they want to dig deeper on a particular topic, that's the best way to do it. So diving right in, Rob, here are a few of the spiritual and financial fundamentals on the list. First and foremost, we've got acknowledge God as the Lord of your finances.

And that's really the starting point of Christian stewardship and an important ongoing aspect of a deepening relationship with Christ. Second, in that section, we've got make a plan for your financial journey. You know, on these programs together, we frequently discuss the need to develop a biblically sound personalized money management strategy that will inform your spending, your saving, your investing and your generosity. And then a third one from that section, Rob, is to resist financial temptations. You know, handling money well takes more than just learning the rules of good financial management. You've also got to practice and develop self control. Now, thankfully, self control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

So as we draw closer to the Lord, that fruit should become increasingly manifest in our lives. Yeah, that's really helpful, Mark, and a great place to start. All right, the next category of financial moves is strengthening your financial foundation.

What do you have for us there? Yeah, so this section is all about making sure that that foundation is fully in place. And if it isn't, this really is the place for people to concentrate their efforts in the year ahead. So a few suggestions here. First, take advantage of the world's most effective personal finance tool, and that is a budget. Now, that may be unpopular, but a well planned and well executed budget really is the single best tool available for effective money management. Now, one new one to the list this year is to comparison shop for higher interest rates on your savings. Over this last year, interest rates have moved from near zero a year ago to the four plus percent range today. So moving your money to a savings account, maybe at an online bank, can meaningfully move the needle on the amount of interest a person can earn. And then kind of in that same vein, we've talked a number of times over the last year about putting some of your savings in U.S. government I bonds. I bonds are paying inflation adjusted rates that are well above most other bonds and other savings options.

Now, they do have some restrictions, but very attractive in the right circumstances. Mark Biller's with us today. We're talking about their annual list of financial moves for 2023. Much more to come just around the corner. Stick around. Thanks for joining us on Money Wise Live.

I'm Rob West. Joining me today, my friend Mark Biller, executive editor at Soundmind Investing. You can learn more at soundmindinvesting.org. What if you had a top 10 list that was uniquely for you and your financial situation to make important moves for 2023 and really shore up your financial foundation and your role as a steward? Well, that's what Soundmind Investing has made available from 70 or more suggestions. You can handpick your top 10 financial moves for 2023 in some key categories. Just before the break, we talked about category one, spiritual and financial fundamentals. The second one we talked about was strengthening your financial foundation. Mark, the third category is developing an investing plan. What do you have for us there?

Yeah, no surprise. We've got a lot in this section. We've got 26 different suggestions in this area. But the most important big idea here is Scripture encourages us to prepare for the needs of tomorrow without becoming hoarders. So all of these suggestions can help you invest as a faithful steward who acts with prudence and wisdom. So the first idea in this section is to identify obstacles that are holding you back from saving for retirement and start moving those out of the way. So some common roadblocks would be auto loans, expensive housing, generally poor money management. But honestly, Rob, often the biggest obstacle is just not having a financial plan or any measurable goals.

And that's really the whole point of this top 10 list idea is to identify some of these key goals and then get to work. So the second idea in this section would be to get familiar with the foundational biblical precepts related to investing. The Bible offers lots of timeless principles related to investing and managing our wealth. And by studying those and allowing those to become part of your thinking, you'll begin to be able to apply those ideas to the investing decisions that you face. Last one from this group is an SMI hallmark, and that's to become a better investor by using an inside out approach. Now, Rob, you and I did a whole program on this a couple months ago, so listeners may want to dig that one out of the archives for more information. But the big idea here is to make investment decisions based on your personal inside out needs rather than on the outside in expert opinions and market news.

Yeah, that's really helpful. And then, Mark, as we build on this investing topic, I know you all have an entire section just on broadening your portfolio. What would you have our listeners know there? Yeah, so this section is more for those who are becoming an experienced investor and they're looking to broaden their portfolio either to reduce risk or take advantage of market conditions. So a few examples from this section would be learning about investments beyond stocks and bonds.

You know, we just had the worst year for a traditional 60-40 stock bond portfolio in about the last five decades. Now, fortunately, there are some other options available and learning about things like commodities, real estate, gold, just to name a few that can really help add some additional diversification to a core portfolio. Now, on a similar note, learning about some easy ways to hedge market downside may be worthwhile for some folks. SMI has discussed several of those techniques and products this year. And then a final one would be, you know, you might have to grapple with this whether or not you go through our list, but it's to understand some of the new investment options that are coming to a lot of employer-based retirement accounts. Now, I have to warn you, not all of these are necessarily good options. So it's really important to be informed about some of this new stuff coming down the pike. Yeah, that's exactly right.

This is really helpful, Mark. Now, of course, no top 10 list in terms of financial moves would be complete without thinking about retirement. And I know looking toward retirement is our next category.

Yeah. And this section has ideas like taking advantage of the current bear market in stocks to convert traditional IRA money to a Roth IRA. You know, with investment account values down a lot this year for some people, it can be an attractive time to consider a traditional to Roth conversion so that you can have more tax-free income down the road in retirement. Now, another example from this section would be assessing how much money you'll need to maintain your standard of living in retirement. We've got some helpful pointers on how to do that, how to look at that whole situation for those that have that life transition on the horizon. Yeah, great. Mark, you of course have a ton of suggestions in, let's call it your miscellaneous section. It covers children and college and insurance and a whole lot more. So I want folks to check that out when they read this article at soundmindinvesting.org. But I'd like to skip to what you call the most important section of all.

What is it? Yeah, that's your relationship with God, Rob. There's just no substitute here for this one. And first and foremost, the way that you improve that relationship with the Lord is to invest time in it. You know, the most important goal of a Christian steward is to know Jesus.

He's the one who is the pearl of great price and valuing your relationship and your communion with him above your wealth and investments is really a key cornerstone to keeping all this financial stuff in perspective. And then one last parting thought as we kind of wrap up what's been a tough financial year for a lot of people. I would just say that if we trust in Jesus and bring our concerns to him, Christ will deliver us through the difficulties of life. You know, we can live in hope because we serve a God who's too strong to lose control of any situation.

He's too wise to make mistakes and he's too loving to ever abandon us. Well, what a great reminder for us today. Mark, as we head into this new year, of course, learning and growing in our understanding of biblical stewardship is so key. And I've been so encouraged over the years through my own subscription to the SMI newsletter. I'd love for you just to share with our listeners quickly what that is and what they would get if they signed up.

Yeah. Well, the newsletter membership, we have an actual physical newsletter that goes out every month. And then we also have an online membership where we're writing content constantly throughout the month. What we're trying to do is both educate folks. So we have a lot of folks who come in maybe not knowing a whole lot about investing. And then we've got folks all the way at the other end of the spectrum who know quite a bit about investing. But for all those folks, we're trying to educate, help people understand the investing world and landscape. And then on top of that, we're putting together very practical, tangible counsel on what they need to do in their own portfolios so they can follow along with us with our model portfolios.

Excellent. And it's written by a team of writers, including Mark Biller, that really all want to bring you godly and biblical counsel so you can be a wise steward of your resources. Well, Mark, thanks for stopping by today with some great ideas for improving our finances in 2023. Mark, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you. Thank you, Rob.

Always my pleasure. That's Mark Biller, executive editor at Sound Mind Investing. We really just scratched the surface on what's in their terrific article, Your 10 Most Important Financial Moves for 2023.

You can read the full article at soundmindinvesting.org. We're going to pause for a brief break. We'll be back with much more. Stay with us. 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. Back to the phones, we go to Oregon. Betty, thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Thank you for taking my call. I have a tax slash Social Security question. Last year, I converted some traditional, in 2021 tax year, I converted some traditional IRA to raw. And so I had to pay the taxes on that, obviously. But then when I got the letter from Social Security saying what my benefits would be for 2023, they included all that amount as like its regular income.

It was a one time occurrence. So I know there's some kind of a form that you can file, but I don't remember the name of the form or a number of the form and to whom I file it to because I need to get that corrected because they're thinking I'm going to be making that much more. And I'm not with a conversion issue.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that. I mean, you can always reach out to the Social Security Administration at SSA dot gov and schedule an appointment just to understand the calculation and perhaps talk through things. But they're basing their estimates on your high 35, your 35 highest years of earnings. And it's a look back and they're estimating it based on that amount. So did you did you do that conversion in this tax year or last year?

In 2021. And sir, I've been receiving Social Security for this year. But this is the new amount that they're projecting, you know, given the increase that everybody's getting the 8.7%. And in that calculation, they included it, it said, based on your 2021 IRS tax return, they're increasing my Medicare Part B, Irma and my Part D. And it's all based on that 2021 filing, which included the conversion. To the tune of 93k.

And I don't have, I'm not making an extra 93k. That was a one time occurrence. Yes, is the thing. And so I need that corrected. I follow you, I would reach out directly to the Social Security Administration, you can schedule either a virtual or in person meeting, just to explain what you're describing here to me as to this one time occurrence. You know, it certainly is added to your taxable income for the year.

And, you know, that could be factored in. So I'm not aware of the specific form or process for making them aware of this one time event. Have you reached out to them to try to have a phone call or schedule a meeting?

No, not yet. I was gonna hopefully get the form number from you, but I will reach out to them directly. And, and so that they know that they're basing their data on on something that happened a one time occurrence. And when when I did that, I was told by my tax preparer, it will affect your IRMA. And I fully expect that. But they said you can counter that by filing a form saying it's a one time occurrence.

It's not like making that much more money income. I'm not. Yes.

Yeah, makes total sense. I'm following you now. But I would reach out to them directly. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the actual form number that you would file, but I am tracking with you. And I think it will be fairly simple to clear up. The biggest challenge you might have is just actually getting through and getting that appointment scheduled. They're very backlogged these days and still playing catch up from the pandemic. So just be diligent in your efforts to make contact.

But I'm confident you can get the information you need and get it squared away. Betty, we appreciate your call today. God bless you. We're going to head to Joe in Kansas City. Joe, how can we help you?

Thanks for taking my call. I retired four years ago. I'm now 71. And at that time, I began receiving a pension, a small pension monthly from a company that I worked for early in my career for 15 years. Now they're dissolving the pension plan. And I have to decide between a lump sum payment, which will entail paying 20% taxes, or take an annuity from a yet to be determined insurance company.

They said that it'll probably be two more months before they will know which company so I don't know the solvency of that company. So I wanted to see what your recommendation was. Yeah. And how long do you have to make this decision, Joe?

I have to let him know by December 2. Okay, so you won't have the information on the annuity prior to making that decision? Correct. And I did ask in the company meeting that they had, I did ask about that and said that it felt like it was we were being asked to make a decision without full disclosure. They didn't respond.

Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. So you don't know what the annuitized amount would be if you elected the annuity option? Well, they're telling everybody that it will be the same amount monthly that we are getting now. I said suppose our pension was supposed to be for life. And I think that's everybody's question is the solvency of the company for the rest of our lives.

Yes. And what is the amount you're receiving now monthly? After taxes, I get about $500.

Okay, and what are they offering you in terms of a lump sum payout? About 70. Okay, and that's before taxes? I'm 70,000. Yeah.

Okay. So let's say you were to have 56,000. And we were to pull 4% a year out of that. And you were to invest it, you know, you'd only end up with about $186 a month. Now, you would still have your principal intact, where in this case, you're giving that up in exchange for $500 for life. And I assume that's on your life only and doesn't extend beyond that.

Was that communicated to you? Yeah, correct. I just have the single plan.

Yeah. So if you wanted to go from $186 a month on that 56,000 after tax, up to $500, you'd start eating into the principal. And you know, you'd just have to recognize that but at least you'd have access to the money.

Are you really counting on this $500 a month right now? You know what, let me ask you to do this. I've got to hit a quick break, but I want to continue to process this just a bit more. So if you'll stay on the line, we'll do it just on the other side of this.

Break. Joe, you stay right there and we'll be right back on MoneyWise. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. We are not live today. We actually have the day off. So don't call in, but we do have some great calls all lined up for you to enjoy.

And just before the break, we were talking to Joe in Kansas City. She's been receiving a pension from a former employer for quite some time to the tune of $500 a month. She's been notified that she has the option either to roll it out to an annuity that would continue at that same level of monthly annuitized payments for the rest of her life, or receive a lump sum to the tune of about $70,000 before taxes.

She's trying to determine before the end of the year which decision she'll make. And they say that she won't know which insurance company will be providing the annuity prior to the decision. Joe, I think my only concern as much as I'd love for you to have control of this money and take the lump sum is that, you know, if you look at the amount you're getting $70,000 minus taxes, let's say you end up with about $56,000. If you continued pulling that $500 a month, that's about 11% a year, which means that in 10 to 11 years, if it were invested conservatively, you would probably have exhausted that full amount, even if you were earning 4 or 5% a year on it. And so that money would be gone in that period of time and then, you know, you lose your income source at that point versus being able to count on this $500 a month. And I realized there's some degree of uncertainty about that. But, you know, the insurance company failing is very low in terms of risk, just given the other safeguards and safety nets that are in place to protect that.

So if you're counting on that $500 a month to really meet your monthly expenses, and this isn't just surplus, it's probably given the amount and the length of time before you would run out of that money. It's probably a little safer to at least know that if the Lord were to Terry and you're in good health and you live, you know, another couple of decades that you'd have that income to count on. Do you follow?

Yes, I do. And that makes sense. What I've done the last four years is I've just used that pension money to go into an online savings. And I've used that as my emergency fund to build up the emergency fund and to handle major expenses because I had to move and had to buy a house and stuff. So now that I've kind of settled in with all of that stuff, I just made the decision before being notified about the pension to back off of my IRA distribution, leave that in the investments and to start using the $500 pension more as a live on so that I'm saving the IRA.

I see. Yeah, especially now while this market's down. Well, I think that's something to consider, you know, as you look at your overall strategy, because if this truly was surplus, then you'd have the option to take that lump sum, pay the tax, and then just let that sit there and continue to grow on a conservative basis, which gives you the opportunity to tap a larger amount if you needed it for some unexpected event or medical event, something like that. As long as you're not depending on it. But if you are depending on it, you know, to cover a portion of your expenses, then I think that's where it's a little less risky to say, okay, at least I have this guaranteed payment for the rest of my life that helps me meet my obligations. And I don't have to worry about that running out. I think that really is the decision point. As much as I'd like for you to have the lump sum and kind of be in control of it, you know, it really does come down to just your peace of mind and your ability to, you know, fund your expenses if you were to live, you know, to age 95 or beyond. You follow? Yes, I do. These are all really good points.

Okay, very good. Well, listen, I would ask the Lord to give you some wisdom on that. If you want an advisor to just kind of look at the whole thing, Joe, and you don't have one, you could reach out to a certified kingdom advisor there in Kansas City, perhaps just pay for a few hours of their time to help you do some planning to look at your IRA, look at the investments that you have, look at this annuity option, perhaps help you kind of put a financial plan together across all of it.

Even if you continued on the track that you're on and you didn't need somebody to manage any of this money for you, just doing some planning between now and the end of the year, I think would be time well spent and perhaps give you a little more peace of mind as you're making this final decision. You just head to our website. Again, if you don't already have someone, just click Find a CKA when you visit MoneyWise.org.

You can find, you know, several there in Kansas City. Find the one that you think is the best fit. And that WISE Council may be just what you're looking for at this point if you don't have clarity on where to go from here. We appreciate you checking with us, though, Joe. God bless you. To Virginia. Hi, Ashley, how can we help you?

Thanks for taking my call. I just have a quick question about a home equity loan. I don't know how they work. I don't know what kind of credit score or anything is required for them. But my question is, would it be wise or not wise to get a home equity loan at a lower interest rate to pay off a couple of higher interest rate debts?

Yeah. And these are credit cards? My goal would be to save money monthly and to save money long term. No, they're not credit cards. One is a personal loan that we use for some home improvements that we had to do. And one is actually a vehicle loan. We're self-employed.

My husband's a contractor, and he needed a vehicle. And at the time, it was after the recession, and we had taken a hit. And so our credit wasn't all that great. So the loan, the interest rate is higher than we would like for it to be, but we were stuck.

He had to have a vehicle in order to be able to work. So, yeah. Has that credit score improved since then, Ashley? It has improved. We're probably both. It's not great still, but we're working on it.

We're mid-sixes. Okay. All right. And what is the interest rate on the vehicle loan? It's high.

It's over 20 percent. Oh, yeah. Okay. And what about that personal loan?

It's 17-ish, maybe. Okay. And is it collateralized by the house? No. Okay. And have you – what is the balance on that personal loan at this point? The balance on both of them together is less than $20,000.

Okay. And how much are you putting toward it? Just the minimums? Do you know how quickly you'll have them paid off if you continue? No, we pay both. We pay extra on both of them.

I'm really working on paying more every month on both of these loans to try to get them paid off sooner and to pay less, you know, overall on the total of payments. Yeah. What do you project it'll take if you're realistic about the payback? Do you think it'll take three years? Hopefully less than that.

I mean, I would hope that I could do it in less than that. Yeah. You know, it's really just going to – You know, we're making money, you know, now, but I just – I'm trying to think of, you know, the interest. It's just painful to pay those high interest rates.

Yeah, sure. No, I mean, those are very, very high. You know, you certainly could look at a home equity loan. I think the key is going to be, number one, I don't want you to string this out a lot longer. The tendency would be to get a loan and kind of push the repayment period out, which even though you're bringing the interest rate down, may cause you to end up spending more in the long run. If you're committed to sending more every month and staying at that current payback, then it just becomes a math equation.

And the question would be, can you, with your current credit score, get it down low enough on the interest rate that after the expenses of the home equity loan, you come out ahead? We just need to do that math and figure that out. Let's talk a bit more off the air, and we'll be right back. 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. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. I had the chance to talk a bit more with Ashley off the air, and she's going to look at what the total expenses would be of a home equity loan at bankrate.com in terms of the actual term she could receive, with her husband and her credit score being a bit low still, even though it's coming up, to determine what are we going to pay to get this home equity loan? And given our current payback trajectory, even at a slightly lower rate from the current rates we have, how much total outlay are we going to have? And then compare that to the amount of interest she'll spend over the next two to three years on the current payback plan and just see at the end of the day which is going to be more cost effective. The other consideration is just currently those loans are one's personally guaranteed but no collateral. The other's collateralized by the car and we're moving that to the house. So if there was a major disruption in pay and there was a default, now all of a sudden we're putting our house at risk.

So given that extra risk, we better have a pretty significant payoff in the end to make that worthwhile. So she's going to look at all of that and then make that decision. All right, back to the phones here in our final segment today. Let's head to Indiana. Pam, you're next on the program. Go ahead. Yes, sir.

I was going to ask a question. I sold my home in North Carolina last year and of course we didn't have a mortgage. We had paid off our mortgage. So we had all that money left and then it took us eight months to find a home in Indiana and we have purchased another home. Do I need to use any of that money that we got from the other, the sale of the other home on my taxes? Yeah, so this was your primary residence that you sold last year, is that right? That is correct, yes.

We lived there 27 years. Okay, and do you know what the gain was? Do you take the selling price minus the original purchase price minus any improvements in transaction costs to sell it? Do you have a rough idea of what the profit was? Probably about half of what I got, yes. Okay, which would be about how much? Let's see, about $40,000.

Okay, yeah. So the good news is if it was your primary residence that you lived in two out of the last five years and it sounds like you lived there a lot longer than that, you would exclude up to a half a million dollars if you're married filing jointly, up to a half a million dollars of the gain of your sale would be excluded. So if you had $40,000 or anything beyond that, up to a half a million, you would not have any capital gain whatsoever, which means you'd keep 100% of that gain and you can do whatever you want with it.

You don't have to redeploy it into another house, although you can, but there is no taxes that you would have to pay. Alright, and that's up to a half a million. That is good to know. Yes, we'll take it, right?

Exactly. Alright, well, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. You all do a great job. Well, thank you, Pam. God bless you and thanks for checking in with us today. We appreciate it. Now let's go to Arkansas. Patty, how can I help you?

Yes. Hey, Rob. Okay, I sold my primary residence and I realized $357,000. I know the IRS will let me take a $250,000 off of that before show capital gains, which will be like $107,000. So if I take that and add it with my adjusted gross income, I'm still at like $119,000, which is going to make me have $22,500 for federal and state, $6,400. So we're looking at $29,000 on capital gains. I'm 66 and I really don't want to pay that much.

I would rather put that somewhere else. I mean, is there, at my age, can I still do like a Roth IRA, a health savings account, Timothy Fund, or what can I do? Yes. Well, keep in mind, this won't be added to your taxable income for the year. So basically, you will likely have a 15% long-term capital gain on that portion that's over and above your allotted exclusion of $250,000. So you file a single, is that correct? Yes.

Okay. And so if you have income between $41,600 and $459,000 in income, not the gain, just your taxable income, your adjusted gross income, then you'll pay a 15% long-term capital gain flat rate on that additional amount over and above a quarter of a million dollars. Is that the percentage you were using or were you calculating it another way? No, 15%. But you're saying I don't add the capital gains with my gross adjusted income? No. So you're not going to pay federal tax rates on that as income.

You'll pay capital gains tax rates, which is a flat 15% on the amount that you had in profit over the $250,000 limit. Right. Okay.

Okay. So it's 15% and there really is no way around that in the sense that you're going to pay that either way no matter what. So the question is then how do we move forward and what opportunities do you have to save on taxes? You could look at putting some money aside in a Roth IRA. That's not going to give you any kind of tax deduction and you would have to have earned income in order to be able to do that. You could look at trying to bunch your giving if you want to get above the standard deduction and try to itemize your taxes, which would give you the ability. If you could do, let's say, multiple years worth of giving into a donor advised fund, claim it all in one year to try to get above the standard deduction and then kind of dole it out over time. You know, you could look at something like that, but there really aren't any other options with regard to, you know, minimizing that tax.

You're just going to have to recognize that 15% in the year that you sold it and there's no way to defer that or, you know, cut that down in any way. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So I just need to go ahead and bite the bullet and pay that amount.

Yeah. Unfortunately, the good news is you get to keep 85% of it and that first $250,000 you pay zero. So relatively speaking, given all the gains that you're going to have in this property, you know, I think it's a fairly small price to pay.

I realize nobody likes to write any kind of check to the government if we don't have to, but it is symptomatic of God's provision. And I think the 15% on that amount over, you know, $250,000 is a relatively small price to pay. So we always ought to be looking for ways to minimize that. And if you can find some ways like the options I mentioned, that's great. But apart from that, you know, I would just go ahead and set that portion aside, be ready to pay that, work with your tax preparer to make sure you are getting that gain as low as possible. And what I mean by that is make sure you're counting any kind of improvements that enhance the value of the property over time that could reduce that gain. Look at opportunities to claim any kind of expenses, certainly related to the sale, to reduce that gain. That's where a tax preparer, I think, could be really beneficial to you. But once you get to that final number, you are going to pay that flat 15%. To the extent you have that money available to do something with, then I think that's the opportunity to look at, you know, what your investing strategy might be. Are you going to redeploy that, Patti, into another home or anything else?

Oh, yeah. And that's the problem. It costs so much more to get a home that that's taking a big chunk out of me trying to buy another house. But I had to move because of my business. And I just couldn't keep my other house, which is two and a half hours away. So you can't even put it back in the right kind.

No. If it were a rental property, you could do a 1031 exchange and roll that into another similar rental type property to push that gain out. You would eventually have to recognize it, but you could kind of kick the can down the road. But with your primary residence, that's not an option.

So anything above that $250,000, you're going to have to just go ahead and set that aside and pay that when you pay your taxes for the year. OK. All right. Thank you. OK. Hey, all the best to you, Patti, as you make that move. I know this is not something you're excited about doing, but we'll pray that the Lord gives you that right home as you get closer to your place of business. Thanks for checking in with us. God bless you.

Let's see, Tennessee. Ed, you're next on the program. Go ahead.

Yes, hello. I'm 83 years old and once said, put money away in your house, store cash to your house. Do you agree with that?

And if you do, how much? Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I like to not overdo this. I mean, I certainly understand the wisdom in it and it's fine to keep some cash at home. I think you ought to think about the purpose of the money. You know, in my situation, I would be thinking about perhaps a bank networking glitch of some kind.

It's unlikely, but if there was some sort of temporary disruption in the financial system or your particular banking network, it would likely be short lived. So I would probably think in terms of up to two weeks worth of expenses in cash. That's generally the way that I would look at it. If you want to be more conservative, you know, you could think in terms of extending the number of weeks, but I would have some rationale behind why you're doing it and, you know, kind of target a specific amount based on that.

Because in my view, getting well beyond that is a bit overdone. So, you know, how does that feel to you, Ed, in terms of thinking about why you would do it and then kind of backing into a specific amount? Well, I don't really know.

I have to think about it. Another thing is, are we going to have electronic money at the end of the year? No. Basically, the Biden administration asked the Treasury to look at a central bank digital currency. They did. They issued a report. You know, the report was favorable as to the benefits. I would question that longer term, but they certainly don't want to see the cryptos continue to accelerate, although a lot of this recent crypto meltdown, I think, is going to squelch a lot of that. But I think it's only a matter of time before we'll have a digital currency that's backed by the U.S. central bank, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

It's years off, certainly not by the end of the year. Ed, thanks for listening and calling, sir. God bless you. 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. 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.