Pricing Life Insurance

Have you ever wanted to read through some I am Rob West. If you have loved ones who depend on your income, having the appropriate amount of life insurance is an essential part of your financial plan. Today, I'll tell you how to avoid paying too much for it. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live. Biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, so first of all, you won't find the expression life insurance in God's Word. But the concept of needing to financially support your family is certainly clear.

1 Timothy 5.8 reads, But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So for the vast majority of us, life insurance is a must. Overpaying for it, though, is not.

Let's start then with a question. How much should a 20-year policy providing $250,000 in coverage for a 30-year-old cost per year? Well, a recent survey asked that question and found that most respondents, especially millennials, think the cost would be around $1,000 a year. But the actual price tag is only about $160 a year. That means a lot of folks are setting themselves up to overpay.

Here's how to make sure you're not one of them. First, avoid choosing whole life over term insurance. Don't get caught up in the idea that your policy should have a cash value during your lifetime instead of what it will do for your family if you should die. Whole, permanent, or universal life insurance policies build a cash value that you can tap into for certain things while you're still alive.

But that's very expensive money. You'll be far ahead if you invest the difference between a whole life and a term policy in your retirement account. Instead of getting snared by a policy's cash value, think instead about how much insurance you actually need to protect your loved ones, which is usually 10 to 15 times your annual salary.

Then look for the least expensive term policy that provides that amount if you die during the policy's term. You also want to pay attention to costly add-ons, which the industry calls riders. While these can help you customize your policy to fit a specific need you might have, they can also run up the cost. You especially want to avoid something called a return of premium rider. Check that box on your application and the insurance provider will give you back all of the premiums you paid when the policy expires.

If that sounds like a deal too good to be true, that's because it is. That one rider alone could double your premiums and keep you from getting the returns you'll realize if you invest the difference instead. So you want to stay away from anything that promises to repay your premiums. Another rider to watch out for is accidental death. It raises the death benefit if death results from an accident.

But the restrictions as to what type of accident and under what circumstances it applies to severely limit its usefulness. Plus, if you take out enough coverage to begin with, you really don't need an accidental death rider. Now, another way you can overpay for life insurance is when the provider doesn't require you to have a medical exam.

These are called guaranteed issue policies. Most companies, for most policies, will require you to get a checkup and have blood work done. Of course, sometimes a policy that doesn't require a medical exam is just what the doctor ordered.

Fun intended. For example, if you have a pre-existing condition that makes it impossible to get a standard policy. But keep in mind that you'll almost certainly have higher premiums and less coverage with a guaranteed issue policy.

You also want to avoid something called an ART policy, that's A-R-T, an acronym for Annual Renewable Term. At first glance, these look very attractive because the premiums start out low. You're guaranteed coverage for the life of the term, but each year you have to renew the policy and each year your premiums increase. It won't happen right away, but at some point you'll be paying more than you would for a standard policy. So again, go with a simple term policy that has level premiums throughout its entire term. All right, so I've shared some ideas on the way to get the best price on life insurance, but perhaps the last way, and maybe the biggest, isn't so obvious.

It's to act while you're still young. Make sure you buy a policy right now if you can and get it for as long as you can, as long as it fits into your budget. All right, your calls are next, 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We'll be right back. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West.

That's right, it's a new year and a new name for the broadcast, but the same content coming from God's Word, helping you navigate your financial life. So what are you thinking about today? Let's talk about it. I've got three lines open. We've got some great calls that have already come in, but still room for you at 800-525-7000.

That's right, the phone number hasn't changed, 800-525-7000. All right, let's dive in. We're going to begin in Homerville, Ohio. Beth, you'll be our first caller.

Go right ahead. My granddaughter has some savings bonds from 1998 to 2005. She only checked one of them, but it's making 0.4%. Is there any reason she shouldn't cash these in and put them into her high interest savings account, which is 3.76%?

Yeah, I do like getting them out of those bonds for the reason you mentioned, Beth. Let me ask you, though, would she want to use these for qualified educational expenses for college specifically? No. Okay. Yeah, then there's not any reason to wait on redeeming those, so she can go to treasurydirect.gov. Does she have the paper bonds or are they electronic? I do not know.

Okay. Well, in either case, she can get the value of them at treasurydirect.gov. That's the Treasury's website, the only place to go. You'd type in the CUSIP number and she could get the value, and then she'd redeem it. She would have some interest that would be credited at that time, and at that point, she could then take this money and redeploy it somewhere else, and if she doesn't want to earmark it for either K to 12 or higher educational expenses, then yeah, I think the key would just be perhaps using this to shore up her emergency fund, and if she can do better, which she absolutely can right now in a high-yield savings account, let's certainly do that.

Beyond emergency savings, if she doesn't have a short-term need for it, she could use this to fund a Roth IRA as long as she has earned income, start putting something away for the long term, but if this is money she wants to use in the next five years, then I think keeping it safe, liquid, and yet getting a reasonable rate of return makes a lot of sense. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Beth. Thanks for calling. God bless you.

To North Carolina. Hi, Cynthia. Thanks for calling today. Go ahead. Oh, hi there.

I was calling. My question was that, should you tie it on Social Security? Yeah, it's a great question, and you know, we get this question a lot, and it comes from, I think, good-hearted people who just want to be faithful and honor the Lord. The challenge is it'd be very difficult to compute, if you will, what is a return of your original contributions versus what is a gain that was added to it, because it's clearly, you know, you're going to ultimately get back in the form of every check more than you put in, and you have to recognize that there was a portion of this, unless you were self-employed, that was actually contributed by your employer as well.

So you know, it becomes a pretty sophisticated math equation at that point. So you know, I think at the end of the day, the Lord wants our hearts, and giving is not about him getting something from us, but it's something for us. He wants us to give cheerfully. It's a way for us to demonstrate an act of trust, because when we recognize God as provider and we give, we're saying, Lord, I'm willing to give up a portion because I know you as my provider will continue to provide for me, and so I don't have to have a clenched fist on this.

And so it becomes a demonstration of our trust, and I think it allows us to participate in God's activity, which is an incredible blessing, and that's one of the reasons we give so joyfully. So how do we approach the tithe? Well, as you said, it's a starting point, it's a tenth, I think we should give it to the local church, and it's on the increase, and that's why this question comes up, because when it's less clear, you know, when we get a paycheck, it's obvious, well that's 100% of that is my increase. With Social Security, a portion of that, despite the fact there's a gain built in, and despite the fact that my employer did a portion of it, a portion of that is clearly a return of what I paid into the Social Security system to be able to receive this benefit. So I think, you know, my approach is just to say everything I receive is a gracious gift from the Lord and I'm going to give back off the top, the gross amount, but, you know, I think ultimately that's between you and the Lord and you certainly could apply a certain percentage to it, and that would be very appropriate at the end of the day, I'd just make it a matter of prayer and then do as the Lord leads.

Does that all make sense though? Yes, yes, because at the present I'm still working, and I went ahead and filed for Social Security last year, around April, so also, if I can ask another quick question without telling the guy, since I am still working as a teacher, is there some way I can invest some of that money that I'm getting from the Social Security? Oh, absolutely, yeah, you can do with it whatever you'd like. So you are not full retirement age, is that right? I am. Oh, you are?

Yes, I'm 60, well I just turned 68 on the 2nd of January. Okay, very good, yeah, so there won't be any reduction in that benefit based on your earnings, you'll be able to work and earn as much as you want, and you'll still get your full benefit. And then you can turn around and do with that whatever you'd like. So in terms of the priority use of that, I'd make sure you have a fully funded emergency fund of at least six months, and then if you've got surplus beyond that, and you've already done your giving, your bills are covered, you're not looking to increase your lifestyle money, I think turning around and saying, I want to put this money to work, especially in light of what's going on with inflation, that money is losing purchasing power every month just because goods and services are rising. And so being able to take that and say, I want to redeploy that in an investment strategy that makes sense for me at 68, that's probably a portfolio of 30 to 40% in stocks, which this is a great time to invest, and maybe, you know, 60 to 70% in bonds that are more stable and pay a reasonable rate of return. And that total portfolio over time should give you some growth in that now in any given month or quarter or even year, it could be down, you're certainly you're taking an element of risk anytime we invest, but it gives you the potential if you don't foresee needing this money anytime soon for you to grow it over the next five or 10 years.

So that if you needed to tap into it for long term care or something like that, you know, you'd have some growth on it. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. So what's the best way to find a financial advisor? Do you have other investable assets, Cynthia?

Or would this be kind of the beginning of it? I do have an IRA, but yeah, that's it. Okay. So what do you have in that account roughly?

About 32,000. Okay. All right. And what is that invested in? Is it in mutual funds? Yes, mostly mutual funds. Okay.

I'll give you two options. You're probably slightly below what a typical investment advisor would require as a minimum. So the two options you have is one, you could check with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org, soundmindinvesting.org. And they have a very effective strategy where they would make mutual fund recommendations for you. You could open a brokerage account at Schwab or Fidelity.

They don't care. And then they would tell you which mutual funds to pick based on your age and your goals. It's a little bit more hands on because you're actually making the selections yourself based on the input they give you. The other option is more automated. It's what we call a robo advisor. And you could do that with the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. Just Google it, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. You'd open up an account, probably transfer your IRA in, and then you'd have another account for the proceeds from Social Security.

And it would be an automated approach after you answer a series of questions, they would automatically invest that money every time you make a deposit. Thanks for calling, Cynthia. We'll be right back. We'll be right back with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

That's right, a new name and a new year, but same host. I'm Rob West. I haven't gone anywhere in the same phone number, although the lines are full at the moment. So sit back and enjoy some great questions like this one from Frank in DeKalb, Illinois.

Frank, go ahead, sir. Yes, I have a question about how can I prevent my children when my wife and I pass away to pay a high inheritance tax? I know I can write checks out for what is $15,000 a year now, but how do I avoid them paying the 35 percent that they'll have to pay when they get our money that we leave them? Well, the good news, Frank, is that there is no federal inheritance tax. You can have an inheritance up to over $12 million before they would have any kind of tax on that.

And then there are six states that have a tax at a state level, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So you would have to be aware of that. But apart from that, you know, there is no inheritance tax until you get above $12 million bucks. OK, I don't have that much yet, but I have to get to know.

Yeah. Now, you can, you know, give up to in this year that annual gift exclusion is up to $17,000. So you could give $17,000 per person away as a gift and together you and your wife could give $34,000 a year per person. The deal there is that just doesn't apply to that lifetime gift exclusion of what is now in 2023, $12.9 million.

So as long as you give 17 or under or you and your wife 34 or under, then you just make that gift. You don't even have to tell the IRS. If you give above $17,000 or $34,000 to one person, then you just have to do a gift tax form where you'd let them know. And then that would come off of the annual lifetime exclusion of $12.9 million. You know, and at that point, again, there's still no tax until you get above that. But you just have to file that form. So basically, it's really not a consideration that you have to be concerned about unless you're, you know, have a significant wealth at death. OK, I appreciate it. I was just checking out how it happened because we had to pay some taxes out about nine years ago. And so the government got some of the money.

So I just didn't know for sure how much it was anymore. Yeah, you should be in the clear. Absolutely. Frank, thanks for calling today, sir. God bless you.

To Cleveland. Hey, Carrie, thank you for calling. Go ahead. Yeah, I have a question. I'm selling the house, it's closing on Friday and it's for $80,000.

I'm 63 years old and I'm just wondering what to do with that money. OK, well, congrats on selling that house. That's great.

A couple of questions for you. Is this your primary residence or was it a rental? No, it's a rental. It's a rental that I'm selling for 80 and I already have my primary residence. It's all paid for. I have a 401.

I'm still working. I have a 403 B. I have a Roth through work through both of them through fidelity. And I'm just wondering how much I could put with 63. I know how to do the capital gains on it. So I'm just wondering how much is the max of that can I put into a 403 B or can I do so much for two thousand two oh two two and two oh two three like break it up on my taxes. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the 403 B is going to have to be through salary deferral. The limit for the contribution on that for 2022, you know, that's already passed, even though you could fund an IRA until you file your 2022 taxes, arguably between now and April 18th.

You could still make an IRA contribution for 2022 prior to filing, but you won't be able to make any 403 B or 401 K contributions because that you can't make direct contributions. It has to come out of your paycheck and you have no more paychecks for that year now that we've turned into a new year. So you'd have to focus on maxing out your 403 B contributions for 2023. That's going to allow you to do twenty two thousand five hundred dollars for your portion of that. And then combined with the employer portion, it'd be up to sixty six thousand between the two. So you'd want to just focus on maxing out your portion up to twenty two five.

Now, if by doing that, it pushes your well, it decreases your paycheck such that you don't have enough left to pay your bills because you've maxed out your 403 B contributions and so your check is a good bit lower your paycheck. What you could do is pull from the eighty thousand that's sitting in savings to supplement that. And that's a way to kind of, you know, systematically get that money going into a tax deferred environment through that salary deferral and through the contributions to your 403 B. If you have the ability to do the full twenty two five out of salary deferral and you're still able to pay your bills and you've still got this eighty thousand minus the capital gains and expenses to the realtor and that kind of thing left over in savings, then the only other place you could look at would be you could do a traditional or a Roth IRA contribution as long as you, for the Roth, you meet the income requirements, it phases out after a certain amount of income where you can no longer make that contribution but you certainly could do the traditional IRA. You could do, you know, that you and your husband if you're married and then beyond that if you want to try to get even more into a tax deferred environment, you'd have to look to an insurance product like an annuity.

Does that make sense? Yeah, but what's the max I could put for, because I only have a little bit, like maybe a thousand or two thousand going to a Roth IRA, what's the max I could put for this two thousand twenty three? Yeah, the two thousand twenty three is sixty five hundred dollars if you're under age fifty, seventy five hundred if you're over age fifty, that's the limit for twenty twenty three. Would you put seventy five and then seventy five for next year, like I could do a part of the Roth for next year first, like start that way. And I heard you in the past say pull from your right, put it in savings, but pull to pay your bills. To supplement. Yeah, absolutely.

So if you haven't filed your twenty twenty two return, which you likely haven't, you could do seventy five hundred for last year and for this year. We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. Thanks for your call, Carrie. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live here on Moody Radio.

I'm Rob West, your host. This is where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to your financial decisions and choices. As we think about our role as stewards, money then becomes a tool to accomplish God's purposes.

So our goal, faithfulness and contentment, understanding the heart of God and really applying that to our role as money managers for the King of Kings. We do that together each afternoon here on this program. If you have a question, we've got only two lines open, so you still can get through eight hundred five, two, five, seven thousand. Let's head to Florida, Isle of Capri, Jeff. Thank you, sir, for calling. Go ahead.

Thank you, Rob, for taking my call, and I really appreciate and enjoy your program. Just a quick question in reference to life insurance. I'm sixty four. My life is sixty seven. I'll be retiring in a couple of years.

She'll be retiring probably in a year. We both have good savings. We have probably a year of emergency funds in our savings. I have, through the county government that I work at, accidental death and dismemberment, plus I have a Florida retirement systems account. In the event of my death, while I'm still working and even after I retire, my wife gets a portion of that retirement fund. I also have a charter fishing business, which worth quite a bit of money, and I have federal fishing permits that are worth quite a bit of money. We have quite a bit of equity in our home.

Should she need to sell the home, it'd be probably well in advance of paying off what we owe, and she'd probably come up with, I'd say, two or three hundred thousand dollars over that amount. My question is, should we put money into, should I put money into a life insurance policy this late in the game, or just take that money and keep adding it to the surplus of savings? Yeah. So, if I hear you correctly, and by the way, thanks for that helpful overview, Jeff, and it sounds like you and your wife have done a great job planning for this season of life financially. If something were to happen to either of you, a hardship wouldn't be placed on the other one based on primarily a loss of income, at least once you reach retirement, correct? Correct.

Okay. So the question is, then, what do we do between now and when you retire? And what I'm hearing is, you have life insurance in force that will carry you through until retirement? Is that right? Yeah, that's correct. With the county government, should something happen to me, you know, I've got insurance there, and then my retirement fund with the county, actually the state of Florida, should something happen to me, my wife will get quite a big number off that retirement fund. I don't know if this is a full amount, but a pretty big number, and then again, I have my charter fishing business, which is worth quite a bit of money, along with my federal fishing permits. Yeah.

Okay, very good. So I think the key there is just to make sure you've done some proper estate planning and wealth transfer plans, that she knows kind of where to go if something were to happen to you, because the assets are there, as long as you've got detailed records of all of your financial accounts, and she knows who the trusted advisors are that would help to, let's say, get that business sold and convert that asset to a liquidity event that gives her, then, the cash that she could use to generate income, if that's the plan. Those types of things really are critical. So I think you would be in a position, at that point, to drop the insurance and recoup that money, and then I think the key then is, what other types of insurance do you need? Well, obviously, medical insurance is critical. Beyond that, a homeowner's or a renter's insurance policy, it would be important, probably, just given the assets that you've accumulated, to have an umbrella policy, which is going to give you additional liability coverage beyond what's included in the homeowner and car insurance, which, you know, that's very inexpensive and can go a long way if you had a major event occur, unforeseen, especially given that you're operating a business like that. I imagine you have the proper insurance there, but having that personal umbrella policy on top of it, I think, could be a great option for you as well. But beyond that, I don't really see a need, other than considering long-term care insurance, I don't see a need for you to try to replace this life insurance policy when you get to that point. Good deal.

I appreciate that, Rob. Then we'll just take, as opposed to adding additional life insurance, being that we've got adequate coverage now, just take whatever additional money we have and keep putting it in the savings and building that up as a buffer. I think that's right. And the only other thing I would add there, Jeff, is, you know, if you don't have an advisor, I would find one because I think some planning is in order. And what I would be getting at there is just to say, how much is enough? What is our financial finish line? And could we be at a point where, based on everything we know today and the lifestyle that God has called us to, and our trust ultimately being in Him, that we might be able to accelerate our giving? Because we don't need to just accumulate for accumulation's sake.

And I'm not saying you guys are doing that. You may still be in a perfectly appropriate track here. But ultimately, I think we need to get on our knees before the Lord and say, what is our financial finish line for our lifestyle, that is our kind of our monthly spending, and what should our financial finish line be for our accumulation? And nobody can answer that other than you and your wife before the Lord. But I think going through that exercise would be helpful because, number one, it'll give you a lot of peace of mind to say, wow, look at what the Lord has given us. But number two, it'll help us say, okay, we know what enough is, and therefore we have the ability to do some other things as the Lord leads.

So perhaps that's one other step you may have thought of, but if not, perhaps you prayerfully consider that as well. Jeff, we appreciate you checking in with us today, sir. To Ohio we go. Hi, Mary. Thank you for calling. Go ahead. Well, hi, Rob.

I love your show. Just have a real quick question. I have one child, and I have everything, my car, my house, my savings and check-ins in PODs or TODs, transfer on death, payable on death. Do I still need a will in the state of Ohio? You do, Mary.

And here's why. The TOD is great, and that's going to supersede your will, which allows for a more efficient and expedient transfer of that asset to your named beneficiary because it happens outside of the probate process. But the will is going to cover everything else. So it's going to tell the authorities how to distribute your cash, any investments that don't have a beneficiary already named, personal effects and other types of belongings.

You probably don't have any minor children, but something as simple as instructions regarding the care of pets. So all of that, kind of everything else, is covered in the will and can just ensure that whatever the Lord has entrusted to you, all the way down to the furniture and your personal things, pass according to your wishes through the probate process as opposed to somebody else making that decision. So if I only have one child and he's living in the home now, I still need a will? You do. I mean, you'd have to, unless the home is in a trust, have you done a transfer on death deed? Yeah.

Okay. And do you have other assets? What about cash in your checking account, savings account, furniture, personal effects?

What about all of those things? So no, I mean the savings and checking, I've done the transfer on death for those, but... Yeah, so the benefit of the will, and it would be very simple, and you could do it yourself with an online tool or you could get an estate attorney just to draft a very simple will, but that's just going to ensure that everything passes appropriately in the way that you want. Would it likely happen without it?

Probably, but why take a chance there? There are other things you have besides those accounts that have the TODs, and the will is essentially a catch-all to make sure that anything that's not in an account with a transfer on death or your home with the transfer on death deed is going to pass directly to your son if that was your choice, and any other ministries perhaps that you want to receive a portion of what you have. Hopefully that helps you, Mary. Thanks for calling in for your kind encouragement about the program. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West, your host, taking your calls and questions. Hey, before we head back to the phones, you know something that I see as one of the big ideas that God has for us in contentment in the Bible is this idea of contentment. I was thinking about this just the other day. You know, when we think about it, contentment is critical. The question is, how do we increase it? Well, you need to focus on what God has given you and not what he's given others. I mean, I think the comparison trap is the contentment killer. When we get into the trap of comparing ourselves to others, it undoubtedly is going to squash any kind of contentment that we have. I love what Craig Groeschel, the pastor and author, says. He says, the key to contentment isn't to lower your expectations so low that you won't be disappointed, but to raise your expectations in the presence, power, and faithfulness of the living God.

That's a great reminder for us today as we think about our role as stewards of God's money in pursuit of contentment. All right, back to the phones we go to Deborah in Indiana. Deborah, thank you for calling.

How can I help? Yes. Good evening, Rob. Hi. Yay. Thank you for taking my call, and I just want to thank you for this program. It's very encouraging. Thank you. God bless you. Yeah. That's very kind.

Thank you very much. My question is, I have from two different companies, I have my 401k that they're just holding there because I'm no longer working. They invested it for me, but I want to put it together in an account investment. I don't know which one.

Should it be a rough area or traditional? So I just want to know which one to put it into. Yes. It's going to be whichever one you have for your 401k. Most people have the traditional version of the 401k, but there is a Roth 401k. So whichever it is, either traditional or Roth, when you roll it out, you would roll it to the IRA that's the same type. Do you happen to know what type of 401k you have, traditional or Roth? I think it's traditional because it's the company that I was working with that had it.

Yes. So in both cases, it would be a company-sponsored plan. If it's a 401k, it has to be. The question is whether there was taxes taken out prior to the contributions.

If there were, then that would be the Roth. If not, if it went in pre-tax, that would be the traditional. And again, in most cases, it's the traditional unless you elected the Roth option if it was even available. Not every company has that. So if it's a traditional 401k, you'd roll it to a traditional IRA at that point, and then it would come over as cash.

It would be a non-taxable event, and then it could be redeployed at that point. What do you have accumulated in that 401k? What's the balance, roughly? Well, I have like one is about 15,000. The other one is about 30-something thousand. Okay.

All right. So if you combine those into one new IRA, you'd have about 45,000 in there. And are you going to just leave that there and let that continue to grow? I don't know what to do with this. I just want to put them together so it won't be scattered.

Yeah. Well, if you don't need the money because you've got your income covered through other sources, then I would keep it invested, but do it in a way that's appropriate for your age and goals and objectives. You could connect with an advisor, find a Certified Kingdom Advisor on our website, or if you just need some suggestions on the investment side, our friends at soundmindinvesting.org could help you there. But to answer your question, if it's a traditional 401k, then you'd roll it to the traditional IRA.

And again, at that point, you would have to then select the investments that would be purchased inside the IRA so that money could be put to work for you. Okay? Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you so much, Debra, and thank you for your kind remarks. God bless you. To Fort Lauderdale, my hometown, Renee, how can I help you? Hello.

Thank you again so very much for taking the call. You are a blessing and your show is a blessing and Crown Financial is a blessing to us, to the point that we have finally paid off everything except our house and we've got our budget down. It can live off of one paycheck a month. Wow. That's great. Well, I know it's kind of late in life. We're in our 50s.

No. I mean, you're still so far ahead of most people, Renee. So congratulations. That's great work. Well, it was because of your show. So thank you.

Well, thank you for that. My question now is we have that other paycheck. We want to divvy it up into like four piles, one for God, one for house, you know, improvements, whatever else, one for a car, because you said, make sure we save for a car. Yeah. We want to do that and so forth. Anyways, is there a better place to put the money other than a savings account that's only earning 0.02 interest while it's building and something that we can add to because like with the CD, we know it's locked up and you can't add to it. So is there a better place? Yeah.

So go over these. I love this idea of you saying, listen, we're going to live off of one paycheck because we're debt-free except for the house. We're going to take the second paycheck so long as we have it. And we're going to put that toward the goals that we have, those things that really align with our values and our priorities. And I heard you say you want kind of four buckets, if you will, to divide that money. God, assuming that you're giving home maintenance, a car fund. What was the fourth? Well, I was going to say the God pile is more for additional above like a charity, like whatever else.

We had God coming out of our one paycheck. Sure. Sure. Okay. So additional giving, home maintenance, car savings.

And then I see some notes here on my screen. Was it family travel? Was that the fourth? Correct. Yeah.

Okay. So all four of those could happen at any time. God could lead you to do some additional giving with a need that he places on your heart. You could need to make some repairs to the home. Obviously, I imagine the car purchase would be potentially in the next couple of years.

And travel could happen at any time, especially if it's based on the needs of aging parents. So I think you need to keep that money liquid so you can get to it, but you want it safe and you want it to earn more than a quarter of a percent or less. I think the key here, Renee, is probably an online savings account with one of the online banks.

You're going to get FDIC insurance, meaning it's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government against the failure of a banking institution. And like at Marcus.com today, they're paying 3.3 percent. And you could open multiple savings accounts. There's no fees, no minimums.

And 3.3 is much better than 0.1 or whatever you're getting right now. And you just link it up to your checking account electronically so you could just automatically sweep the money over, but get it out of your main checking account and get it into these buckets, if you will. And you could even have four different savings accounts with the online bank, one for each of the four, just to keep things really simple.

Marcus, Capital One 360, Ally Bank, any of those would pay a great rate right now, over three percent, and it would cost you nothing in terms of maintenance fees. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's exactly what we were looking for.

Good. Well, hey, congratulations. Thanks for all of your kind remarks. I'm delighted to hear that this program and our good friends at Crown Ministries have been a blessing to you.

And I'll tell you, you all have followed God's principles, and it doesn't mean you've been without challenges along the way, because we all have them, but you're experiencing the fruit of heeding biblical counsel and applying that to your financial decision-making over a long time, and that's the big idea. Renee, thank you for your call today. To Mississippi, hey, Kathy, thanks for your patience. Go ahead. Missouri, O'Fallon, Missouri. Oh, okay, Missouri, yeah, MS, I read that wrong. Sorry about that. Go ahead.

That's okay, Rob, and thank you for your program. Two questions, one, I have a $5,000 18-month CD that has come due where I've only earned 0.2%, and I need to reinvest it. I have to be no risk because I'm retired, and so I need to know what to invest it in for the highest interest rate short-term. Then the second question, I have an $11,000 CD coming due in summer, and I can invest that for a longer term because I don't need to get to it, and I need to know what no risk highest interest rate I can invest it in. Okay, define short-term and longer-term in years. Okay, short-term was 18 months, the longer-term was five years.

Okay, all right. Yeah, so a couple of thoughts. You can get a one-and-a-half-year CD right now at nearly 5% for 18 months. I would go to bankrate.com and do a search for CDs based on a term of one-and-a-half years, and you'll find I just did it, and I'm looking at one at 4.75 that's FDIC insured with a minimum deposit of $1,000 for 18 months. So that would give you a pretty good rate of return.

The other option is you could look at the I bonds, the inflation bonds. They're paying 6.89% right now through the end of April 2023. It's going to adjust at that point for the next six months, but I don't expect it to go a whole lot lower just because inflation is still fairly elevated. That would be you could put in up to $10,000 for this year, and you'd have to leave it. You couldn't touch it for 12 months, but after 12 months, you could pull it out if you wanted to, and it's a great rate of return at 6.89. Now again, that's only going to last from as long as you buy it before April, you'll get six months at 6.89, and that's completely safe because it's issued by the U.S. government. The question is what's the next six months going to be? We won't know that until May, but I think it's still going to be a great rate of return.

Your other alternative is the CD, and again, the website to find the very best CDs for the term you're looking for is bankrate.com, and you'll be able to see all of the banking options that would apply to your situation. Kathy, thanks for your call. We're grateful for you stopping by today. This program is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. We say thank you to my team, Ryan, Tahira, Robert, and Amy. God bless you. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.