Earning Money God’s Way

The following program was prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. Whether you own a business or work for a paycheck, earning money is probably something you think about every day. I am Rob West. While earning a living may be one of your priorities, you may not give much thought to how God thinks about it. Today we'll talk with Howard Dayton about earning money God's way, and we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today because we're prerecorded.

This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, it's always a pleasure to have my good friend Howard Dayton on the program. He's the founder of Compass Finances God's Way and the former host of this program. Howard, welcome back.

Great to be with you, Rob. Well, we love it when you stop by, Howard. You write about earning in your book, Business God's Way, and I want to dive into that today, but first I should mention that we're offering this insightful book to listeners for a gift of any amount to Faithfi this month. So you can go to faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com, and just click the Give button to get a copy. All right, let's start talking about earning money God's way, Howard.

What's the first thing we should know? Well, God owns everything, and he's your real boss, no matter if you're self-employed, Rob, or you work for someone else. I love what Colossians 3, 23, and 24 tell us.

Whatever you do, do your work hardly. As for the Lord rather than men, it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. And even your ability to earn is a gift from God. Deuteronomy 8 18 tells us, You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. Wow, that puts things in perspective.

The next time you get pretty excited about something you've accomplished, remember it's the Lord who gave you the ability to do it. All right, let's talk about some principles here. What principles should we follow as we earn money?

Well, the very first one is that we should be totally honest, Rob. Business people need to treat customers, vendors, even competitors with complete integrity. And workers? Well, they need to be honest with their employers.

I like to tell them, never steal even a pencil or a penny from your employer. Yeah, that's exactly right. And as we do those things, it's important to remember that we represent Christ in the workplace, right? I sure would agree with that. Jesus says in Matthew 5 16, Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven.

Yeah, that's great. Howard, when it comes to the business owner, owning and running a business, as you well know, is a challenge. What comes to mind first and foremost, perhaps a biblical principle that can help with that? Yeah, Rob, I think planning a course and being in order certainly come to mind. Now, we might not think of being in order as a biblical principle, but it is. In 1 Corinthians 14 40, it says, All things should be done decently and in order. And I would also add, not presuming on the future would certainly be another principle. James 4 warns us, Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a town, spend a year and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

That's so good, Howard. Now, the world would probably agree with many of these principles for running a business or earning wages because they help the bottom line. But probably not generosity, do you think?

No, I sure, sure don't think that comes to mind for a lot of folks. You know, the world often looks at making a living really as dog eat dog competition. But that's not how Christians should view it, especially when it comes to giving. Proverbs 3 24 tells us, One person gives freely, yet gains even more. Another withholds what he should give, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper.

Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Now, I don't think that means God will always reward you with material wealth. But he promises to bless those who are generous.

And in my experience, he can do that in a lot of different and very creative ways. That's exactly right. And there are a lot of ways to give, Howard. You could give a tithe off the prophets. You could even give the whole business away like Alan Barnhart and Stanley Tam, right?

That's exactly right. And, you know, I would take a look at how can you creatively give and even stretch yourself to give more than you have in the past. And then watch what God does as you're faithful to use your business as an engine for ministry. Well, Howard, thanks for stopping by and for bringing the Council of Scripture, which is always where we want to look when we're talking about money and finances. God bless you, my friend. Well, thank you.

Love the time together, Rob. That's Howard Dayton, author of the book Business God's Way. You can get a copy with a gift of any amount to Faithfi at faithfi.com.

Just click Give. This is Faith and Finance Live, and we'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. Again, we're not here today. Our team is away from the studio, so don't call in, but we've got some great questions coming up. In fact, let's go to one of those right now.

We're going to begin today in Illinois. Hi, Rose. Thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Hi. My question, I'm 58, and I'm debt-free. I have 650 in my 401K, and I'm still contributing and still working. I'm also maxing my Roth. I have 127,000 there, and I have about 230 in a Schwab and Vanguard account. Right now, I have about 150 that I could invest more cash price, but I've been hearing you talk about what is the end goal, or when do you stop?

How much is enough? Sure. Accumulating. I'm thinking about going through the SMI private client. This is another question, because the CKAs, I just found out that they are not CKAs. This is SMI. Sure.

They're a trusted organization, and they could serve you very well, or you could go to a Certified Kingdom Advisor. I would feel very good about both. At 58 years old and debt-free, with about, it sounds like, a million dollars in investable assets, Rose, I would say, first of all, congratulations.

You're doing great. In terms of defining enough, I love that idea of establishing a financial finish line, which just simply says, how much am I trying to accumulate, and for what purpose? Because, you remember, the Bible is pretty clear. We shouldn't just be building bigger barns for the sake of building our wealth. Just this idea of endless accumulation is not supported in Scripture. We should be rich toward God, first and foremost, so we should handle God's resources in a way that demonstrates that God is our true treasure and not our things or our money. At the same time, we see that we're clearly to be saving, taking a portion of what God entrusts to us today and setting it aside for tomorrow. The question is, how much is enough? What is that right finish line for each of us?

I can't tell you that. It's not clear in Scripture exactly what that amount is, and so that means we have to be on our knees wrestling through the tension of saying, God, what's right for me? What are you calling me to in my life? You know, he asked the rich young ruler to sell everything and follow him, and he celebrated what the widow did. But I don't think for all of us he's asking us to just give everything away and live a life of poverty.

I think we need to live in that tension, and there's something that happens to us spiritually as we wrestle through that and ask God that question and work to answer it. So, what is an appropriate amount? Well, we could look at this from a purely financial standpoint as a starting point just to say, OK, if the lifestyle you're living right now is one that you believe God has called you to, it's what you've prayed through and you decided, yeah, this is appropriate for me, then we can answer the question, OK, what assets are needed to support that lifestyle in retirement?

So, I'm no longer working, God has redirected me to unpaid work, I'm serving him in a different capacity in this season of life, or maybe I'm unable to work. And at that point, I say, OK, if I want to maintain this lifestyle, what is it going to take? Well, typically, you'll see a rule of thumb is to have 10 to 12 times your salary in retirement. The reason for that is, let's say, you know, somebody was making $60,000, and let's say they're going to live on that 80% of that in retirement, which is not uncommon, so they need $48,000. Well, if they have, you know, that same $60,000 and they have 10 times that, that means they have $600,000 saved up at 4%, that's going to throw off $24,000 a year, OK? Now, you'd say, well, Rob, that's only half of that number, that $48,000 you said it was going to take for them to live on. That's right, because we would expect that the other half would come from Social Security. So, the idea here is, if we have 10 or perhaps 12 times our income saved up at a 4% withdrawal rate, that plus Social Security should be able to fund and allow us to maintain our lifestyle in retirement at about 80% of our pre-retirement income and never impact that principle. Now, in any given year or couple of years, like we've had last year and this year, perhaps, the market could be down and your portfolio could be down.

But over a 5 and 10 year period, you should be able to sustain that 4% withdrawal rate and have the principle remain the same, which means you're never going to run out of money, which means you could give away more during your lifetime, or at the very least, you'd have a pretty sizable nest egg to leave for an inheritance or to give away to ministry or both. And so that's part of the rationale of saying, OK, let's start with the lifestyle that God has called us to, and then let's answer the question, how much is enough to maintain that lifestyle? Now, that doesn't mean we know that nothing's going to come out of left field.

It's going to cost a whole lot more. And ultimately, that's where our trust has to be in the Lord, not in our things, because he is our provider. His provision is more complete and his care for us is ultimately complete.

So that's where our trust needs to lie. I hope that's helpful to you, Rose. Thanks for calling today and being a part of the program. Hey, before we head back to the phones, let's take a few emails today. These come in to us all the time at Ask Rob at FaithFi.com.

That's Ask Rob at FaithFi.com. This one comes to us from CJ. He writes, We use three credit cards and pay them off every month, one for gas, one for groceries and one for bills. Since we proved we could handle credit, they raised our spending limits. With so much identity theft, we're thinking of closing the accounts. Is there an amount of time we should allow between closing each card? We don't want to mess up our excellent credit scores. Well, CJ, first of all, I appreciate that you've managed this credit so wisely. It wouldn't really hurt your credit to dramatically to close these accounts.

I'd probably do one every six months. That's going to lessen any kind of minimal impact you would have. I will tell you, though, that if you're managing this wisely and you're getting rewards on these cards, one way to handle the potential for identity theft, if you wanted to continue to use them, would be to freeze your credit at each of the three credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. It's free of charge. You do have to do it individually at each of the three. You can do it online, but that would prevent thieves from opening accounts in your name without the PIN number.

And when they can't provide the PIN number, they would be stopped in their tracks. So, yes, you can close those accounts if you want to. And again, I do one every six months.

But if you wanted to continue to use them, you continue to pay them off every month and you like the rewards you're getting, either cash back or maybe travel rewards, then freezing your credit might give you an alternate approach to protecting yourself from identity theft. Thanks for writing to us. And then from an anonymous writer, this is a concerned mom. She says, My son needs help with paying back credit cards and loans. Is there a free service to help?

Thank you very much. And yes, there is a service to help. My preferred way to pay off credit card debt in particular is through what's called debt management. Our friends at Christian credit counselors dot org can help him get the interest rates reduced and pay this off 80 percent faster.

Here's how. When you go into credit counseling or what's called debt management, each of the creditors have a pre-negotiated lower interest rate. Now the accounts will be closed when they're put into the program, but through the combination of that lower interest rate combined with a level monthly payment, which simply means as the balance comes down, because more is going to principle with that level payment, you're actually going to get a snowball effect in the process.

The combination of those two things, the snowball effect through the lower payment and the reduced interest rate is going to allow you to pay this back up to 80 percent faster. The great thing is you're honoring God by paying the debt in full, and it's a great service for you to take advantage of. So if you want to contact them, you can reach out to our friends again at Christian credit counselors dot org.

They're all believers. They've worked with hundreds and hundreds of our listeners. So again, it's Christian credit counselors dot org. And thanks for writing to us. Hey, we're going to pause for a brief break. We'll be back with much more. Stay with us. So thankful to have you with us today on faith and finance live.

I'm Rob West. By the way, our team is not here today. We're away from the studio, so don't call in, but we've got some great questions that we lined up in advance. We'll get to those in just a bit. You know, I'm reminded as we think about the role of money in our lives that we need to counteract the messages of this world. We need to operate from a biblical worldview. And when we look to scripture, I think we really see three big ideas around the role of money.

The first is money is a tool. Yeah, we use it to buy things for ourselves and others, and we use it to accomplish God's purposes. But it's also a tool in the sense that God uses money in my life to teach me to rely on him. It's a daily demonstration of my faith. It reveals where I've placed my trust and what I value.

So it's a tool. It's also a test. You know, having too much or not enough can be a test. Are we going to live with contentment? Will we choose contentment? Are we going to rely on money in place of God? It's a test in our lives, but it's also a testimony, especially our willingness to trust God when we have little or perhaps to share generously when we have much. That provides witness to an unbelieving world, even our faith to handle money God's way in the midst of uncertain times. That itself can be a great testimony to the world. So money is a tool. It's also a test. And it's a testimony that God uses to both provide for my needs as well as to grow me up in my faith and rely more heavily on him.

I hope that's an encouragement to you today. All right, we're going to head back to the phones in just a moment. First, an email from Alberto. He writes, I have two credit cards with a total balance of about twenty five hundred dollars. Would it be smart to get a personal loan to pay off both cards? My payments would be much less. Can you tell me if that's a smart move? Thank you, Alberto.

Unfortunately, no, I'm going to advise against this. And here's why. You could end up doubling that debt. And the reason is that oftentimes and I've done this long enough to see this, Alberto, you're just going to have to trust me, is that if we treat the symptom, the symptom is we've got a high payment. It's putting a squeeze on your family finances. And so we want to get the personal loan to try to get that payment down.

That's going to treat the symptom. The real problem is overspending, spending beyond your means. So you need to deal with that first, which means I've got to get a spending plan that balances.

I've got to live within God's provision. I've got to have an emergency fund that's going to take care of the unexpected. So I don't have to fall back on the credit cards when the unexpected comes. And even though the interest rate may be lower on that personal loan, the fact that that payment is lower means it's going to be repaid over a longer period of time as well.

So what should you do? Well, I'm going to give you two approaches. One would be for someone who has over four thousand in debt. The other is for someone under four thousand.

Now, given that you have twenty five hundred, I'd love for you to consider using what we call the snowball method, which is essentially where you start with the budget. Look for any area to cut back and put everything on the table, except, you know, keeping the roof over your head, keeping the utilities on, food on the table and gas in the car. Everything else is negotiable. And let's look for ways to cut back so we can free up margin. That is something left over at the end of the month. And when we line up those cards smallest to largest balance, we're going to pay the minimum payment on all of them. We want to keep them current, but we're going to take every available dollar in our surplus and attack the balance.

That's the smallest. Why would we do that irrespective of the interest rate? The reason is when you pay that off, let's say it's three hundred dollars and you find one hundred dollars a month and three months later it's gone.

That's going to give you the encouragement to keep going. And the studies say that when we do it that way, we actually have a much higher degree of success in terms of continuing down the line to ultimately get those paid off. OK, so I want you to start with your budget. I want to make sure you have at least fifteen hundred dollars in emergency savings and then let's snowball that debt. Don't take out that personal loan.

I just have gotten that call too many times of people that say, Rob, you know, I talked to you six months ago. You told me not to get the personal loan. I did. Guess what? The credit card debt's back and now I have the personal loan on top of it.

I don't want that for you, Alberto. Hey, let us know how that goes. By the way, if you have a question you'd like read on the air, send it along. Ask Rob at FaithFi.com.

That's Ask Rob at FaithFi.com. All right. Let's head to the phones today.

Let's head to Texas. Hi, Belinda. Go right ahead. Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. My question is we bought a home in twenty twenty one and my husband is currently having a he bought a portable sawmill. He has a regular job and he has a portable sawmill that's kind of growing.

But, you know, it'll take a few years for it to become, I guess, a main income source. So the question is, we need more land. We have about a quarter of an acre. We have three to six months of emergency savings. The housing market doesn't look good.

We were wondering is it is it better to keep our house and just buy land separately right now or do we find a home with about two acres on it, even though we're. Yeah, I don't know. I know that's kind of vague, but. Yeah, no, it's OK. What is the side job again? A portable sawmill.

OK, a portable sawmill. Yeah. Yeah. Turns logs into, you know. Yes.

Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. And is the expansion in land from a quarter acre to your goal of having roughly two acres, is that a part of the business or is that just you all would like a little more space? Part of the business primarily, even though we would like space, but the motivation is more towards that for thinking of the option. OK, so if you have this bigger parcel of land that will help to grow the business and bring in more income, is that what you're expecting? Yes.

And not having to rent an industrial building at an industrial park or. Yeah, something like that. Very good. Yeah.

You know, a couple of things going on here. Number one is how quickly do we expand the side business? I love that he's doing it on the side, even though that's going to take more time and we've got to monitor availability for family.

I like the idea that, you know, he's got his base of income. So you all aren't putting your family finances in jeopardy. Let's do this. I'm going to ask you to hold the line because we've got to take a quick break and we come back.

I'll talk about how to think about how rapidly you'd expand, how much additional overhead you want to take on, but also just whether or not this is a good time to sell that house. Folks, we're going to pause, but we'll be back just after this. Stick around. Delighted to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. We're not here today.

Our team is away from the studio. This is prerecorded, so don't call in, but we've got some great questions we lined up in advance. Before we go to the phones, let me remind you, FaithFi and Faith and Finance Live is listener supported. You'd like to be a financial partner, you can do that at faithfi.com. Just click give.

Thanks in advance. All right, let's head to the phones. Just before the break, we were talking to Belinda and she and her husband. He's recently started a side job as a portable sawmill. It's going well, generating some income. They'd like to expand because they'd love a little more space going from an acre to two acres, but it would also help in terms of operating the business. Just wondering, would it be better to buy that land separately or should they sell their home now in this housing market and actually buy a piece of land that would have their new residence plus the additional acreage?

A couple of things going on here, Belinda. I would say, first of all, with building material prices still very high, this type of business can be a great source of income. You'd always want to have a business plan to make sure you know where you're going, what is it going to take for you to make this business successful so it's not putting actually a strain on your family finances. In this case, do you have a plan for where the raw timber would come from for the portable sawmill?

How are you going to transport it and store it so it dries properly and how long is that going to take? Do you have any prospective buyers lined up like general contractors? You want to have all these questions answered before you expand the business, especially with a large purchase like adding more acreage. But if you've thought through all of that and you all have the financial means to support it, in terms of whether or not this is a good time to sell, it actually is a fairly good time to sell your current residence and here's why. Number one, housing prices are still very high at the very high end of this range that we've seen housing prices grow to over the last decade significant but we've moved from a seller's market to a buyer's market because we have seen a softening. Inventories are rising. The number of days on the market on average is growing. The average home is selling for about 97% of asking versus 100 plus percent. So we were seeing premiums paid over and above asking price.

That's gone. Now folks are considering concessions and even contingencies. So I think the environment is right but housing prices are still high which means you could get still top dollar for your house and make a good purchase going in with it being more of a buyer's market, giving you a little more flexibility. So I think the timing is right. The key then is number one, can you support this financially, this added expense if you're taking on a bigger mortgage and number two, will the business support it or are you a little premature in this kind of expansion which would be a major additional expense. So I would think and pray through all of that both from the business side and the personal side but in terms of answering the question, is this a decent time? If all those things check out to sell the house, I would say yes, it is if you can find the right thing. Thanks for calling Belinda.

800-525-7000 is the number to call to Tennessee. Hi Danny, go right ahead sir. My question is about an annuity for retirement versus a systemic withdrawal. Yes, so basically where you would fund an annuity, either an immediate annuity or a variable annuity that you would annuitize at some point and convert that to an income stream as opposed to having your capital invested and then just taking a withdrawal, are you trying to compare the two? Well yeah, as I'm looking at retirement, my main concern is making sure I have funds available for my wife should I pre-decease her. Yes. And you know I go into retirement and things financially, everything would just be wonderful but if I pre-decease her then it would significantly go down because my pension that I have, she wouldn't get.

Yes, yes. So that's my concern and I do have money set aside and as I'm looking it appears as though an annuity would provide more income for her but I just wasn't sure if that's the smart way to go. Yeah, so outside of your retirement plan, your pension which as you said would only last through your life, what have you accumulated in retirement assets? Not much, just about $275,000. Okay, and how close are you to retirement?

A few years out okay you know probably. Yeah, alright and so between her social security or a spousal benefit you know if your pension were to go away, what would be the gap in her being able to meet her expenses? How much would she be short per month that you're trying to make up through this either an annuity or growing this quarter of a million dollars?

I would be $35,000 to $38,000. A year? Yes. Okay, so you know she's looking for, so if you were to take just that $250,000 let's say that grows to with the market and additional contributions $300,000 and we were to take that and pull 4% a year that would only be $12,000 a year that we would get out of that so obviously that would be you know quite a bit short and so you know I think the question is what can you do between now and then to build that up because whether you buy you know invest in an annuity that you would then annuitize for her to have an income stream in retirement or you were to pull that yourself in either case you're going to need more in the way of assets to generate $36,000 a year without depleting whatever that is.

You know if you want to try to maintain the principal balance you know you would need to get that up closer to a million dollars so I think the key would be you know do you get a whole life policy or you know or do you focus on really just trying to build your assets between now and retirement maybe even working part-time in retirement so that if your pension were to go away there is a plan that's been thought out that would either allow her to have the assets that she could you know pull from on a monthly basis while invested to generate that $36,000 a year or do you have an insurance product but even then you're going to have to put in quite a bit more than $250,000 to generate the $36,000 a year that she needs. Does that make sense? Yes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And we're working on that as far as increasing that you know monthly.

About $2,000 a month right now going in. Okay. Well that's great.

So I think that's the key. Now in terms of which one to go with you know my preference would be just to invest that and keep it outside of an insurance product because number one you have more access to the money. You don't have surrender charges and penalties if you needed you know or she needed to get to the money for major long-term care expense or something like that but you could still invest it conservatively such that it would throw off the income she needs to be able to supplement her income.

Hopefully you're in good health. The Lord tarries and you guys have a long time together where you're enjoying living on you know your pension plus Social Security and therefore we can just let this continue to grow you know maybe for the next couple of decades until she would need to then convert it. But if you'd rather transfer that risk to an insurance company and know that I don't have to think about or she doesn't have to think about the market and we can just annuitize this and she just gets this income stream for life, that's certainly an option. It's just not my first choice. Does that make sense? No and it makes sense and I'm too old to go out after a whole lot of insurance you know.

Insurance was not a consideration. And well that would not be my first choice as well. So I think you've got a good plan here. I think the idea here Danny moving forward is just to keep your lifestyle in check, start putting as much or continue putting as much away as you can each month, build that over time and if you need an advisor to help you with that you can find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area at our website faithfi.com.

Just click Find a CKA. Back with more questions after this. Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. This is where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to our financial decisions and choices. We recognize God owns it all.

That's critical. It changes everything in terms of how we manage money because we then accept our role as steward or manager of the King of Kings resources. So we have to know his heart to manage his money which is why we go back to scripture and then money becomes a tool to accomplish God's purposes. So we can slay that money idol in our lives. Allow God to be in first position and allow money to be a support to accomplish all that the city has for us while we're here.

And when we approach it that way it really does change everything about not only our financial lives but really I think there's a spillover effect into our spiritual lives. Thanks for being along with us today. Let's head back to the phones.

Tennessee, hi Leah. Thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Yes, hi. My question is I have a retirement account with some extra, an extra amount of money along with this in a private investor's office. This person has actually kind of crossed some ethical boundaries and I don't feel comfortable with my money there in his facility anymore. Can I move that retirement account with the extra money that is sitting there as cash available to me whenever I need to use it to a different situation where I can manage the money myself until I find someone that I feel comfortable with helping me make investments?

Yeah, very good. Leah, what type of account is this? Is it an IRA?

It's an LPL. Okay, but what type of account? So LPL would be the custodian of these taxable accounts or is this a retirement account? It's a retirement account. Okay, very good. Yeah, so what I would do is call the advisor.

I'm not sure. I don't think LPL and I could be wrong on this. I don't think LPL has a retail side like Charles Schwab or Fidelity where you can manage it yourself. I think if it's at LPL, it's going to have to be with an advisor and if you're not yet ready to select that next advisor, I think you'd either have to say, listen, I just want you to move this to cash or I just want you to freeze your work on it and don't make any changes and let them know that you're going to be making a change and then just move relatively quickly to try to find that next advisor and then you'd transfer it out. The other approach would be to transfer it to one of the brokerages that does allow you to handle it directly but also would be more typical in terms of the custodians that investment advisors work with. So Fidelity or Schwab would be two great examples of where just about every registered investment advisor will have access to those two platforms. And so if you start on the retail side where you're managing it yourself, it would be an easy transfer over to the side of Fidelity or Schwab where an advisor that you select could manage it. What are you wanting to do in the meantime? Are you wanting to make some changes or are you just wanting this advisor to stop managing it for you?

Yes. I just want to move all of this money, what's in the retirement account and what's sitting there as cash into possibly just a bank with an advisor at a bank temporarily. I just want to move it all out of his hands to just I've got that cash sitting there. And it's not a ton of money.

It adds up to about $112,000. But it's all I have to work with. So when you don't feel like you feel safe with this person that has crossed some boundaries, I just kind of want to move that money away and get it someplace where I feel like it's safe. Yeah. Well, that makes sense to me.

And I certainly understand where you're coming from. I might suggest because if you move it to the bank, you're definitely going to have to move it back out. I would typically not recommend you just have the local bank investment person manage it. So I'd prefer you move it to either Fidelity or Schwab. You would have complete control over all of the assets in these accounts once it gets there to move to cash or government money market or whatever you want to do, or just leave it right in the things that he's put it in.

But now it's out of his oversight. And then I would move toward finding that next advisor. If you don't already have somebody in mind, you can head to our website, faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. We trust the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation here at Faithfi. And these are men and women who've met high standards, pastor references and client references.

And they've been trained to bring biblical advice and they've met a code of ethics and really high standards in character and competence. And you can interview two or three of those CKAs you find on the website and find the one that's the best fit. But you certainly could move it to a bank. You just open that account and then let your advisor know and then they would transfer it out electronically and the investments wouldn't even have to be sold as long as they can be held at the receiving institution.

But I would probably consider a Fidelity or a Schwab. And the reason is, you may find that when you select this next advisor, it's not going to require yet another transfer. It could just stay right within those institutions. Does that make sense? Okay. And yes, it does.

And one more question. When I get to the point where I'm going to move these funds out of this investment firm's hands, am I going to be charged a penalty? And how much would that be? You should. I mean, are you in stocks and bonds and mutual funds? Is that what you're invested in? No.

What does he have you in? Just a retirement account. Okay. Yeah. But inside the retirement account, what are the investments in it?

Do you know what categories? I don't even really know. He's not shared a whole lot of information.

He's not been very helpful. And that's another reason for me to feel uncomfortable. Yeah. There may be a small fee, Leah, but there shouldn't be much. I mean, it might be a $50 transfer fee or something like that, but there shouldn't be any kind of penalties or anything like that.

This happens every day. And this account will just move from one institution to another using what's called the ACAT system, which is kind of the back office transfer system inter brokerage firms. So from one to another. So you just need to let him know you're doing that and then they can initiate the transfer to whatever new institution you select. Thanks for calling today. I'm sorry to hear that this is going on, but I know you'll feel a lot better once you get it resolved. If we can help further, let us know.

To Montana. Hey, Russ, thanks for calling. Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir. You had talked about the recommendation of full retirement being debt free and having 80 percent of your current salary, I think, times 10, I believe, is what you said. My question is, does that change depending on retirement age if it's 55, 65? Is that equation true for all ages when you retire?

Yeah, it is. And here's the idea is that once you stop working, the idea is if you have 10 to 12 times your pre-retirement income saved up, that that amount, if you take out four percent a year plus Social Security, should equal about 80 percent of your pre-retirement income, which allows you to maintain your lifestyle, recognizing that a lot of expenses are going to come off the table. You're no longer saving for retirement.

Hopefully the kids are off the payroll. Maybe the, you know, the house is now paid for your less gas and clothing and, you know, that kind of thing. So again, that's a rule of thumb.

But whenever you transition away from paid work to whatever God has for you next, if you have that 10 to 12 times your pre-retirement income plus Social Security, you should be able to maintain that lifestyle at a withdrawal rate that would allow you to keep that principal balance intact. Does that make sense? OK, that does make sense.

And I guess let's just say it was like 55 or 60 before Social Security age. I guess there would need to be a cushion there. You don't have that. Well, that's right. So, yeah, you'd have to either, you know, have a higher withdrawal rate until you start taking Social Security because you want to let your Social Security grow eight percent a year. And, you know, that guaranteed eight percent is better than what you might hope that would happen, you know, with your investment portfolio.

Or you would have an additional amount to cover that period of time, you know, if you're retiring early. OK, very good. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks for your call, Russ. We appreciate it. Let's see.

We'll finish up in Louisiana today. Hey, Tony, how can I help you? Thank you for taking my call. I want to take the money out of a 401K to put into a Roth IRA because I don't want my daughter to take the tax hit. I would rather take the tax hit myself.

She's been a really good daughter and I want to make sure there's some money available so that she doesn't have to go through a whole lot of hoops and loops to get to it from the TSP. I see. I know I'm going to take a tax hit for doing that. But like I said, I don't want her to take the tax hit.

Yeah. So did you work for the federal government or who's your employer? I did work for the federal government.

And you've separated. You're no longer working for the government. Correct. OK. And how much do you have in that TSP, Tony? Let's see. It's a generous amount. It's very generous. And I would be able to live very well even after I get this minimal amount out.

OK. Yeah. The only reason I'm saying I'm asking how much is you may want to think about doing that over time because that Roth conversion is going to add all of that to your taxable income. So you may want to do that over multiple tax years just so you don't have a huge spike in your income in one tax year, which would push a portion of that up into a higher bracket, maybe a couple of brackets higher.

So I would work with your CPA on that just to determine what's the appropriate schedule for you to transfer that money into a Roth. Maybe you decide to do it over three tax years or something like that. Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense. OK. Very good. Yeah.

So what you do is roll that out to an IRA and then you could work with your CPA to determine how quickly to roll or to convert that to a Roth IRA and then just make sure your daughter's the name beneficiary on both the traditional and the Roth. Thanks for calling today, Tony. God bless you. Well, we're about out of time today. Before we go, let me remind us why we do what we do here on this program every day. We gather for Faith and Finance Live because we recognize we all have a high calling. We're money managers for the King of Kings, which means we're to be found faithful as we manage God's resources, faithfulness, obedience over a long period of time, applying the wisdom of God's word to every area of our lives.

And that includes our finances. So thanks for being here today. Thanks for calling and for writing and for your emails. We love to do what we do and serving you to be wise stewards of God's money. I want to say thanks to my team today, Clara, Deb, Amy and Jim. Couldn't do it without them. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between FaithFi and Moody Radio. We'll see you next time. God bless you. Bye-bye.